IT'S ALL IN THE CARDS.

Programming to Counter Teenage Gambling

Legalized casino gambling has become one of America's favorite forms of recreation. According to a 1993 Yankelovich study of 100,000 households, 27 percent had gambled at least once. Since 1992, 48 states have introduced legalized [casino] gambling (only Hawaii and Utah have not legalized gambling). Politicians from small, quiet towns across America dream of the surfeit of jobs, revenue, and new infrastructure in their communities -- projects and employment that gaming operations might generate.

In June 1997, the Public Broadcasting Service's "Frontline" reported that Americans spend more money on gambling than on movies, theme parks, and live entertainment (Easy Money). In America, gaming revenue exceeds $500 billion a year. The number of casino-bound Americans has doubled in the past five years. Las Vegas, America's fastest growing city, is the top destination resort in the country.

The nation's love affair with gambling is seducing a generation of teenagers, which is betting as much as $1 billion every year. Thanks to social support, gambling is rapidly becoming a bigger social problem than drugs for this age group. While teenage gambling is illegal in all states, studies reveal that adult behavior influences the choices young people make in their social responses to peer pressure.

Gambling's Impact on Youth

Henry Lesieur of Illinois State University estimates that in the United States 6 percent to 8 percent of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 are problem gamblers. These data, along with other statistics, suggest that recreation professionals face a critical new challenge: how to mitigate serious problems affecting teenage participation in an activity that is perfectly legal in the adult world. Lesieur's studies suggest that compulsive gambling among teens permeates our society. This position is echoed by Ken Winters, director of adolescent substance abuse at the University of Minnesota, who claims, "We're developing a generation of problem gamblers."

The tiny amount of information that is available on youth and gambling is not encouraging. In New Jersey, for example, problem-gambling hotline calls among youth jumped 200 percent between 1987 and 1993. A USA Today study (April 5, 1995) reported that 90 percent of teenagers gambled before the age of 18, which suggests a surge in the future adult gambling population, a fact not overlooked by gaming-industry executives.

The Challenge

There are many challenges facing parks and recreation with respect to the problem of underage gambling. Gene Piscia, writing in California Parks and Recreation magazine (summer 1996), stated that the biggest challenge recreation agencies face is developing teen programs that work. This is a particularly poignant statement in light of the growth of gaming across the state. To address the issue of underage gambling, we must first understand its appeal to youth.

Armed with insight, it is possible to fashion program strategies for effective intervention. Studies suggest that when gambling is introduced into a community, illegal gambling among teens is certain to follow. Furthermore, these studies reveal that teens are twice as likely to be compulsive gamblers; 7 percent of teens under the age of 18 are deemed problem gamblers. A 1991 study by Caneday and Zeiger showed that residents' quality of life ultimately suffered when gambling and tourism came to town.

How Does Gambling's Garden Grow?

Gambling, in one form or another, is as American as apple pie. We use the office pool to gamble on sports. Churches have profitable bingo nights. Many states have legalized poker parlors. State lotteries stretch across the nation from coast to coast. So it appears our society agrees that under certain conditions, gambling is acceptable.

But why does gambling flourish? That gambling survives at all suggests that it meets social and personal needs of the gambler that are not being fulfilled otherwise. In an unpublished dissertation, researcher Edward C. Devereux concluded that gambling is successful because of the following characteristics:

1. Protest against budgetary constraints. The gambler, in a small way, can protest against the "tyranny of the budget" or lack of employment.

2. Protest against rationality. Too many of life's pleasures are controlled by rational thought. Gambling allows the gambler to strike a blow for personal freedom.

3. Protest against ethics. Not ethical in the gambler's mind, gambling provides a way of making a protest statement.

4. Thrill-seeking. Gambling helps to alleviate anxiety and boredom, which often accumulate as a result of ordinary activities.

5. Competitiveness and aggression. These emotions can be vented behind a "playful facade."

6. Problem-solving. Gambling, like crossword puzzles and chess (though with the additional contingency of the stake), provides artificial, short-term, miniature capsule problems -- and their resolution -- for those who cannot face or solve problems in real life.

7. Teleological motivation. Human search for meaning often takes place within the confines of the work (or school) environment. These environments do not put a premium on the "philosophical" or "intuitive" because these ideas are not supportive of goals or work or school. Gambling is the only popular arena in which notions of luck and superstition prevail.

8. Gambling is a social activity promoting access for anyone, including the shy youngster. (University of Michigan, 1990)

The Name of the Game is Risk

American popular culture has always courted and celebrated risk. America's young people, likewise, are attracted to risky pursuits: fast cars, drugs and alcohol, and contact sports. The Devereux study suggested that recreation intervention programs should be built upon the components of gaming's attraction. This notion holds promise for the development of positive diversionary recreation to replace gaming activity.

Beckwith suggested some excellent examples of risk recreation activities -- rock climbing, ropes courses, BMX, and inline skating and hockey -- which embody these components of gaming (California Parks and Recreation, summer 1995). Additional activities for diversionary programming might include climbing-wall competition, mountain-bike trips or races, cross-country endurance races, weightlifting contests, wilderness adventure trips, or scuba diving. Beckwith concludes his article by stressing that young people are attracted to activities with a high level of perceived risk.

Getting in on the Action

As recreation professionals face shrinking budgets, losses in staff numbers, and growing responsibilities, the task of monitoring interest in gambling and the process of educating politicians and citizens about the benefits of recreation must find a place on crowded agendas. There are ways to deal with this challenge in the face of shrinking resources.

Community sharing of advisory-board influence and strategic planning can produce high-profile community activity, which could appeal to the media and politicians. No one agency should be expected to go it alone in the quest to gain funding for recreation and community service programs.

Volunteer community powerbrokers could be recruited to form an ad hoc committee to explore ways to influence the political process on behalf of recreation and other relevant community programs. Retired executives with years of organizational development experience can be recruited in most communities.

Properly recruited and motivated, a person with this background could assume a role of political action coordinator, relieving overworked and understaffed agencies of additional work. As gaming grows in popularity, this effort will become more and more crucial in the fight to meet parks and recreation's mission of service to youth.

To begin addressing the issue of underage gambling, say authors Or. Jeffrey B. Zeiger and John J. Bullaro, recreation professionals must understand its appeal to youth. In "It's All in the Cards: Programming to Counter Teenage Gambling," Zeiger, this month's guest editor and chair of the resource recreation and tourism program at UNBC, and Bullaro, professor emeritus at California State University at Northridge, take an up-close look at an epidemic that is running rampant among our nation's teenagers. What role can park and recreation professionals play in discouraging an acceptable adult pursuit that can be so destructive to our young people? Recreation intervention programs, built upon the components of gambling's attraction, may provide part of the solution (p. 121)