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Copyright © 2006 Bangor Daily News
HEADLINE: Young Poker Addicts
Body:
Internet poker is
easy and private. All it takes is a computer and a credit card.
And some of the Web sites let you start playing without the credit
card. It looks easy to win, so easy, in fact, that a national
epidemic is sweeping the country, and it has come to our part
of Maine.
Cases of addictive online poker playing have cropped up in Orono
at the University of Maine and at local high schools. Dean Robert
Dana tells of a university student who lost "many thousands
of dollars" at online
poker a few years ago and in desperation sought counseling.
The dean says he knows that some area high school students are
deep into Internet poker.
While some Maine school and law enforcement officials say they
know of no online poker addiction problems, most of them are bracing
for an onslaught that is plaguing other parts of the country.
Nationally, card-game gambling in 2005, spurred by high-pressure
Internet
poker sites, increased by 20 percent over 2004, according
to the latest annual survey of youth risks by the Annenberg Public
Policy Center. The study concluded that 580,000 young people ages
14 to 22 gamble on the Internet on a weekly basis. Most of them
are under 21.
Ten percent of the 900 young people surveyed said gambling had
put them into debt. The researchers calculated total indebtedness
of $115 million for the nation's 16 million youthful monthly gamblers.
Dan Romer, director of the Annenberg survey, blames publicity
about poker winnings in television shows and news articles for
contributing to the surge in Internet poker. He quotes Zachary
Dzurick, a Cleveland sports writer, as having been urged by a
publicist, Todd Brabender, to write a story about the winners
in a recent college poker
tournament. Mr. Dzurick asked about the losers as well, but
Mr. Brabender e-mailed back that he could identify "only
the winners."
Dean Dana, at Orono, says the university relies on counseling
rather than computer filters to help students who get over their
heads in gambling debts. Jeff Mao, a computer specialist in the
Maine Department of Education says that filters can block gambling
sites, as they do pornography, but no filter is perfect and sometimes
counseling may be preferable.
The National Council on Problem Gambling is right in describing
underage and problem gambling as a "medical disorder"
and in proposing a comprehensive program that would include prevention,
education, treatment and research as well as enforcement.
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