You might want to be careful before you get your teenagers too many gaming gadgets. Studies by Australian researchers have show n that teenagers who are addicted to video games are more likely to develop obsessive and antisocial tendencies that can lead to a gambling problem later on in life…
This means there might be something to the idea that kids who are the quiet types become the biggest problems in the society. Kids play a lot of video games tend to have a lot less structure in their life. They tend to be really smart, bored and lack parental supervision they also tend to come from homes that are much poorer the psychological pay off for winning at gambling is the same as winning at video games and this is how it comes to be a problem.
The study that claims that gaming leads to a gambling addiction comes from Australia. A survey of 2669 teenagers aged between 13 and 17 by Adelaide University researchers found 56 per cent had also started gambling in the past twelve months. The study also revealed that 2.4 per cent became pathological gamblers by the age of 18. However, the level of damage done to their lives, like losing a house or a relationship was much lower in case of teens simply because they were not as rich as adults.
The study revealed that a large number of teenagers who played video games later became addicted to one kind of gambling whether it be buying scratch cards, playing card games, and playing poker machines. This might sound innocent but many teenagers become obsessed with these forms of gambling which give them the same kind of good feeling and energy charge mentally that gaming does. It is like being in competition with the self with a payoff that is now money instead of gaming points.
The study established that teenage problem gamblers played arcade games three times more often than those who did not gamble, and on average they played hand-held games and Internet games more than twice as often as well.
One of the Australian researched also noticed that teenage boys were more likely to play video games than girl and gamble often.
So if you are planning to get your kid a Nintendo or Gameboy as a gadget for Christmas or a birthday think twice! There is the slight chance that a gambling problem could plague your child for life especially if your kid happens to be male!
