Understanding Games & Gaming: A Parent's Guide
2. Online poker is huge and growing
The US Justice Department considers online gambling illegal, but that's not stopping a whole lot of college students and a growing number of high school students too. Sports Illustrated recently reported on the college phenomenon, saing that "more than $100 million in bets passes through more than 200 online poker sites a day." Those are all off-shore sites like partypoker.com, ultimatebet.com, paradisepoker.com, and bodogsports.com.
The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center estimates that about 580,000 14-to-22-year-olds gamble in Web sites on a weekly basis. Annenberg says some 2.9 million Americans 14-22-year-olds gamble with cards (mostly poker), and card players are more likely to gamble online. More than half (54.5%) of self-identified weekly gamblers reported having at least one of the symptoms of problem gambling: preoccupation, over-spending, tolerance, and withdrawal. That's up from 44.95% in 2004.
What's the attraction? Privacy, accessibility, anonymity, poker experience, and the chance to win money, SI says. For some disturbing anecdotes about students and the money involved, see SI's "All In": "It begins with the buy-in, and nobody is buying into the poker craze more religiously than college students. The payoffs - and losses - are staggering."
Here's the Annenberg Center on the money: "We asked persons who gamble at least once a month if their gambling ever led to their owing people money and, if so, the highest amount they had ever owed. About 10% answered that it had. We estimated conservatively the average debt to be close to $74. (We excluded one respondent who claimed he owed as much as $10,000.) This level of indebtedness would amount to over $115 million for the population of approx. 16 million monthly gamblers ages 14 to 22."
The good news is kids need a credit card to bet and, one 19-year-old online poker player told us recently, when the credit card companies find out a gambler is under 18, it "rats you out" and the account is frozen." He did say that happened to him when he was 17, so he used other people's accounts and paid them back with cash.
Takeaways for parents:
- Teenagers who play poker offline are more likely to be trying it online, and "buy-ins" are getting lower, making it easier to get started.
- Talk to any poker players at your house about possible online poker, the fact that it's illegal in the US, and - if appropriate - what credit card they're using to buy in.
- It's always good to have a handle on how kids are spending their time online, especially if it's large chunks of time.
3. Legislating game sales to kids
At local and state levels, people have been working on legislation to bar the sale of violent (and in some cases sexually explicit) videogames to minors in California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Washington State. But courts have either blocked or overturned such efforts in St. Louis County, Mo., Indianapolis, and the state of Washington, and most recently in California, Illinois, and Michigan.
"The judges found that the states failed to offer compelling reasons to restrict the free-speech rights of game makers and players," the Wall Street Journal reported.
However, three US senators are taking the effort to the next level. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Evan Bayh of Indiana in December introduced federal legislation that basically would turn the gaming industry's current voluntary ratings into law and would fine retailers for selling to minors games rated "Mature" or "Adults Only" or that have their "ratings pending." They believe that tying the law to the industry's own rating system will help it over constitutional hurdles raised at the state level.
Obviously, the jury's still out. Like lawmakers nationwide and the game industry itself, we have to wait and see whether this federal law - probably sparked by news last summer of the sexually explicit code "unlocked" by the "Hot Coffee" mod (modification) to "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" that anyone could download - will make it past the free-speech barrier.
Here's Red Herring on online games, one of its "Top 10 Trends" for the coming year.
Takeaways for parents:
- Know the game ratings (e.g., "T" for Teen/13+ and "M" for Mature/17+). You'll find them on all videogame packaging (rating on front, description on back) and on the Web site of the Entertainment Software Rating Board - searchable by title.
- Whether or not laws ever get passed, kids find workarounds. There's no substitute for engaged parenting, where children's exposure to inappropriate products are concerned - and only their parents really know what's inappropriate.
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