Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

The Coral Cliff Gaming Lounge, on the Hip Strip in Montego Bay - Photo by Claudine Housen

No one quite has a fix on the magnitude of the problem, but experts believe that a substantial proportion of Jamaican youngsters are having more than a flutter and could be in danger of being hooked on gambling.

"Once you start to see gambling as something where you can make money or earn a living, it can become dangerous," says Richard Henry, a psychologist who runs the church-based social-support organisation, Rise Life Ministries, whose programmes include an anti-gambling programme in schools.

Although formal casinos with card games and live croupiers have not been allowed here, gambling is big business in Jamaica. People wager about $40 billion a year, about half of that amount betting on lotteries. An estimated $17 billion hit the coin machines at the gaming lounges and punters place another $5 billion or so on horse racing.

Support of adults

It is illegal for people under 18 in Jamaica to gamble, but it is a law to which most people pay little, if any, serious attention. It is not uncommon for children to be seen at outlets purchasing lottery tickets and sometimes at the off-track parlours having a flutter on the horses.

In fact, one schoolboy interviewed last week says that he not only plays the lottery each day, but can count on the support of adults in facilitating his habit, the kind of situation which people like Henry say worsens the risk of developing an environment of chronic gamblers.

According to this youngster, on weekdays, when he is likely to be in school uniform, he has an adult buy his tickets for the games that play several times a day. On Saturdays when he is not wearing his uniform he makes the purchases himself.

Taking chances

"You just have to take a chance," he said. "Some days you get lucky, another day you lose, but you can win back that money another time ."

Another teenage student told The Sunday Gleaner that he regularly goes to gaming lounges and uses the slot machines. That, this student says, is easy to do because no one pays attention. He has never been asked about his age or for identification.

It is reasons like these, Henry says, why the Rise Life Ministries started its gambling-prevention programme in schools. The project is being funded by the Government's regulatory agency Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC), which is also supporting a study by Henry's organisation to determine the prevalence of gambling among Jamaican adolescents. The results are due by March, but without pre-empting the findings of the survey, Henry believes that it will confirm his worst fears.

Indeed, based on his personal observations and other anecdotal information, Henry believes that up to 50 per cent of Jamaican grade seven students have participated in some form of gambling. In fact, says Henry, Rise Life Ministries has noticed that calls from persons with gambling problems increased three-fold over a three-month period.

Research among teenagers in other countries suggests that such observations and gut feelings, may well be borne out by empirical data once the Jamaican survey is completed.

Entertainment

A survey last year in Ontario, Canada, which tested the gambling habits among teenagers, found that a third of the 2,140 youngsters, aged 15-17, who were polled, were already gambling. Forty per cent were playing poker 36 per cent purchased raffle and, scratch-and-win lottery tickets; and 23 per cent were into sports betting.

Of these children, most said they played for entertainment, but over 20 per cent stated they needed the money, while another 15 per cent were doing it to win back money they had previously lost.

Derrick Peart, executive director of the local gaming regulatory body, Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission, is not surprised by such data. He would hardly be surprised if similar data turned up in Jamaica.

"We don't know to what extent, but children are gambling," he says. "This study will help us identify the extent of the problem, the forms gambling is taking among this vulnerable group, and will point to the strategy in terms of dealing with the problem."

Adds Peart: "Certainly, we have to deal with the prevention early. We have seen statistics, like for example in the United States, where a higher percentage of young people are involved in some form of gambling than it is for adults, and it is frightening."

Peart says he has received reports of persons operating illegal lotteries close to schools, and that some lotteries are also run among schoolboys in the institutions.

"That is where a lot of the problem is," he says, in relation to illegal lotteries.

Stern warnings

The problem of minors purchasing tickets at legitimate lottery outlets or being allowed into gaming lounges has decreased in recent times, says Peart, the result of stern warnings being made to agents. Agents who sell gaming tickets to persons under 18 could lose the franchise, if caught.

But while regulating the gaming sector is the role of the BGLC, Peart argues for the need for public education on gambling. Parents, he says, often give children money to buy tickets Peartbelieves, the practice is on the decline.

But there are also other cultural practices which help to reinforce the connection of youngsters to gambling, such as adults relying on children for the numbers on which they will bet, maybe based on a dream or something that the child has done that is believed to correspond to a specific gambling number.

"Adults have to stop relying on children for lucky mumbers," Peart says.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com