Like a first kiss, getting the car keys for the first time or walking into a bar and buying a first drink, gambling has become a rite of passage for young people on their way to adulthood.
From New Jersey, up and down the Mississippi River and west to Nevada, with casinos in 26 states and lotteries in 38, youths who have watched their parents choose from a hefty menu of legalized gambling activities right in their back yards are going on dates, spending their prom nights and joining college classmates at the nearest casinos."It used to be that young people said, `I'm 21, let's go have a drink,' " said Howard Shaffer, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. "Now they say, `I'm 21, let's go gamble."'
Along with this change in the American cultural scene, there is also a growing concern among experts about the number of youths who - confronted with state lotteries, the growth of family-oriented casinos and sometimes lax enforcement of wagering laws - gamble at an earlier and earlier age and gamble excessively.
A study conducted last year by Louisiana State University found that one in seven Louisianians ages 18 to 21 were problem gamblers, some of them pathological - youths with a chronic and progressive psychological disorder characterized by an emotional dependence on gambling and a loss of control over their gambling.
Shaffer recently conducted an analysis of nationwide studies of gambling addiction in which he found that the rate of problem gambling among adolescents was 9.4 percent, more than twice the 3.8 percent rate for adults.
"Young people have been gambling since the beginning of time," he said. "But I think now, for the first time, young people are growing up having lived their entire lives in a social environment where gambling is promoted and socially accepted."