A Gambling Epidemic

There is growing concern that adolescents and young adults represent the highest risk group for gambling problems. If you perform a Google search, the results will bring up hundreds of articles like this and this with studies supporting that fact.

This is a very serious problem and I am not trying to make light of it, but I really do believe that I have found the root of the problem:

I never really made the connection before, but we took the boys to the Incredible Pizza Company to try to escape the winter doldrums and attempt to spend our entire paycheck in less than one hour. In three minutes, my sons blew about $15 on the above two games. Card swipe. Spin. Rats. Card swipe. Spin. Rats. I didn’t even try to explain the odds of winning the big jackpot of 250 tickets. And winning a big jackpot of 50 tickets didn’t quench the desire. It only fueled it. Sound familiar? It did to me, as I have played my share of slot machines. The reward for spending $15 in these games was a handful of tickets cashed in for dime store toys worth about a nickel.

As I followed my kids' frantic buzzing from one game to the next, I watched other kids clutching their tickets and moving from one game to the next with parents following closely behind. I marveled at the similarities of the pizza-arcade establishment and the adult version of these establishments, aka the casino:

1. Kids do not give up their favorite, high-ticket paying machines. The only things they are missing are the buckets to carry their tickets in.

2. Casinos have:

Pizza-arcades have:


3. Casinos have free drinks as long as you continue to play to ensure you remain loose and continue to play. Pizza-arcades have free cookies and ice cream to keep your kids on a sugar high to ensure they continue to play.

4. There are no clocks to be found.

5. There are no windows to be found.

6. The only light is provided by the flashing, fluorescence of the overhead lights and games.

7. There is loud music, yelling, screaming, crying, buzzing, chinging, whizzing, whirling, and no place to go for silence. Not even the restrooms are quiet.

8. Casinos have workers pushing around a change cart. Pizza-arcades have workers pushing around trash carts.

9. A couple of hours are all you can handle, and you leave with a ginormous headache swearing that you won't be back for at least a year.

Given these similarities, is it any wonder that our youth are growing up with the urge to gamble? We might as well sign them up for casino cards in the hospital at birth like we do with birth certificates and social security cards. "And, here is your social security form, birth certificate form, and casino registration form. Which portrait package would you like?"

So if you really despise these types of places, remember our youth and the gambling epidemic and you have the perfect excuse not to patronize the dreaded pizza-arcade establishment.