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Statistics show that about 75 percent of college students today have already gambled in the past year. This includes playing in land-based and online casinos. Some of the most popular ways for college students to gamble are through the lottery, poker, blackjack, slots, and even sports betting.
There are a few possible reasons as to why a college student would choose to gamble or play on online casinos. Some would see this as a form of hobby, a way to relieve some stress, and even to earn a serious amount of money.
In fact, one of the biggest online casino wins of all time is from a Norwegian college student. This student is known to have won a total of €11.7 million in 2011. All he had to do was play on Betsson Casino. He only made use of his free spins for slots from placing bets on Betsson Sportsbook.
This win surely contradicted the myth that winning from any casino game is impossible as the games are rigged. Even so, some players are still not comfortably trusting random number generators (RNGs) at online casinos to be completely fair and random. Such players tend to prefer playing at live dealer casinos, where you can see the action being played out in front of you on camera – more information relating to this can be found on CasinoGuide’s live casinos page.
Recently, Stockton University conducted a study about what attracts and doesn’t attract college students when it comes to gambling. This includes both land-based and mobile gaming offerings. This was headed by Lloyd D. Levenson from the University’s Institute of Gaming, Hospitality, and Tourism or LIGHT.
The survey from light consists of questionnaires that take only about 10 minutes to finish. There are 502 college students who participated. All are aged from 18 to 25 and each of them got a 10-dollar gift card from Amazon.
What the survey found is that 41 percent of the respondents find gambling interesting, thrilling, and exciting. There are 46 percent who said that they’re just not interested and only 12 percent gave an unsure answer.
64 percent of these surveyed college students said that they have gambled at least once and 59 percent of them answered that they are gambling to fund their college education through student loans.
When it comes to the most popular casino games to these college students, slots take the top spot. 58 percent of them answered that they play slots to gamble. The second most popular is the lottery, which is at 42.5 percent. Following this is casino table games like Blackjack at 30 percent. There is only 28 percent of the respondents who answered that they have already wagered on sports.
The thing about gambling, in general, is that many still associate it with addiction. This is why many are not encouraging college students to get into this in the first place. However, both land-based and online gambling are continuously improving and many organizations are now making sure that safety becomes the priority of casino operators.
There really is no standard legal gambling age worldwide. There are age restrictions depending on the place and gambling activity. It’s important that responsible gambling is practiced and the first step is to check the local legislation regarding this.
It’s also important that the school’s policies are also checked before engaging in any gambling activities. This is to make sure that a student’s admission won’t get compromised because of this. It’s best to check the student’s handbook, the school website, and the office of student affairs for this.
What’s good is that the Council on Compulsive Gambling found that gambling problems in college students are pretty much stable this year. This means that college students are becoming more responsible when it comes to this matter.
Based on the LIGHT survey, only 10 respondents answered that gambling caused them to have serious problems in the past three months. This makes 3 percent of the surveyed respondents who have answered that they have gambled in the past year.
Overall, the LIGHT study found concluded that the results they got were similar to the results of the same study that was conducted in 2016.
The gambling industry is now worth billions of dollars. It is expected to earn over 500 billion US dollars by 2023. Many people are also starting to realize its benefits, especially for the economy.
With the expected growth of the global gambling market, it just makes sense to expect that more college students may engage in gambling activities. After all, more and more states and countries are becoming more welcoming regarding this.
