It seems that the poker craze is not restricted to adults only. As with all things, teenagers are also getting on the poker band wagon and playing in the online poker rooms. A growing number of young players are rapidly growing into a small but apparently growing group of young people who see playing poker online as a way to earn income and hone their skills in psychology and strategic thinking.
As opposed to adults, these players distinguish themselves from gamblers, such as Lotto players who rely solely on Lady Luck, and take a more studied approach to poker playing. as gambling has grown more popular and accessible to young people, through Indian casinos and online games, many worry about its potential for addiction and the harm it can inflict on finances and mental health.
Federal law bans U.S.-based online gambling and prohibits banks from transferring funds to gambling sites. But players easily skirt the prohibitions by gambling on offshore sites. Teens buy MasterCard and Visa gift cards at supermarkets, then deposit the funds through small financial firms that do business with online casinos. Young players breeze past age requirements by simply checking an on-screen box stating they are 18 or older.
"A lot of kids have grown up with legalized gambling," said Kristy Wanner, gambling prevention coordinator at the University of Missouri-Columbia, one of the few universities that monitors gambling as a health concern. "College students are the most at-risk group because they have access to money and credit." Young people, she said, want things quickly and are easily lured by the possibility of instant wealth.
Poker's popularity, and the dreams of millions of players, took off four years ago, after the aptly named amateur Chris Moneymaker won $2.5 million in the televised World Series of Poker. Now, poker remains popular on many college and some high school campuses. At Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, for example, poker games are part of the lunchtime scene.
A national survey last fall indicated that 8.9 percent of men ages 18 to 22 gamble online at least once a month. About 1 million young people - some as young as 14 - gamble on the Internet monthly, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
And those who put money down appear to be playing more frequently. The percentage of 18- to 22-year-old men who gamble on the Internet at least once a week more than doubled from 2005 to 2006 - from roughly about 3 percent to 6 percent, researchers found.
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