Increasing number of US Students playing Online Casino Games

Although the US congress introduced the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) last 2006, it did not stop college students from gambling online. In fact, it has not deterred gamblers at all, and there has actually been an increase in Internet gaming since the law was created.


Recently, a research study was done by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Adolescent Communication Institute, showing that there was an increase in the number of college students in the US who are using online casino sites, when compared to the previous years.


According to the survey, which included 835 respondents during 2008 and 596 respondents during 2010 with the age bracket of 14 to 22, 16% of male college students are now admitted to online gambling compared to just 4.4% in 2008 - a rise of almost 12 percent. Also, the number of high school students gambling every month online had risen from 2.7% to 6.2% over the same period.


It was also found that the monthly and weekly rates of both online and offline gambling among high school females between the ages of 14 and 17 years old rose from 0.5% to 1.5% since 2008. However, the gambling rate of high school and college-aged females is still much less than that of male students.


In conclusion, the researchers of the said study calculated that on a national basis over 400,000 college-aged males aged 18 to 22 gamble online at least once a week and over 1.7 million gamble online at least once a month. It was also calculated that approximately 530,000 male high school students gamble online once a month.


Some online casino websites may not be too disturbed by the data, but many colleges have taken a more serious view of the situation, and also some of their students.


ACI Director Dan Romer stated in an institute news release that this large increase in college-aged male youth gambling online shows that payment restrictions on such casino sites are no longer an obstacle and not effective to young people.


Although online poker players have been lobbying lawmakers to change the current laws there has thus far not been any significant stride towards that goal. Many states have attempted to increase tax revenue to help balance state budgets by adding casinos.