4 Troubled Teens Blog

A recent study in New York State found that students are beginning to gamble at a younger age. Fifty public and private schools were polled for the study.

"The numbers come from the State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services. It found that one out of every five young people in grades seven through12 gamble - that's 300,000 students statewide."

The DePaul Problem Gamblers Program says blame lies in the ease with which young people can gamble in New York, not just in the lottery, but in casinos and racinos. Ray Scott, from Problem Gamblers, says that in addition to the economic ruin that can occur, gambling has a higher rate of suicide than any other form of addiction.

Teens struggling with risky behaviors, such as gambling or teen drug use, can find the help they need at an adolescent residential treatment center. Find one at BoardingSchoolsInfo.com.

Labels: risky_behaviors, teen_issues, gambling

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Gambling addictions run in families, perhaps for genetic reasons, according to a new study from the University of Missouri.

• Dr. Wendy Slutske and her colleagues studied 4700 twins from the Australian Twin Registry . In terms of gambling addictions. Men were almost three times more likely to be addicted to gambling
• One percent of women and 3 percent of men had the problem.
• Dr. Slutske found that if one identical twin had a gambling addiction, the other twin was more likely to have one too. This was not as true for fraternal twins, and implies a genetic component to gambling addictions.

"Like alcoholism, problem gambling is a complex disorder," Dr. Slutske said. "The answer will be in a collection of genes, maybe 10 or 100, we don't know how many, but each gene will increase the risk slightly for developing those problems."

The study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
 

Labels: genetics, gambling

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments