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Winter, 2006 FEATURE ARTICLE Packaging gambling with sex a risky combination for teens Alissa Sklar, Ph.D. International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors lad in a barely there While the use of sex to sell Online Poker just got a C bikini, the blonde and consumer products and whole lot HOTTER screams buxom Pamela services is nothing new, this the headline, Come and Anderson offers a seductive business alliance does serve Teach Me a Thing or Two challenge from the cover of to draw attention to a and get your share of millions Gambling Online Magazine: particularly worrying monthly. Play With Me. With the marketing trend when it dubious distinction of being comes to gambling, since the Anderson promises to log in the most downloaded woman vast majority of youth with regularly to chat and play on the internet, Anderson gambling problems are male. poker with visitors, telling decided to team up with In the full page ad for her Gambling Online Magazine, online poker magnate Doyle poker site, the topless Whats really fun though, is Brunson to launch Anderson peers back at the going in and chatting with all PamelaPoker.com. viewer from over her the characters playing. The shoulder, as she squats star of television series such Inside this issue provocatively in shiny leather as Stacked and Baywatch chaps and black stilletos. lends a Hollywood gloss to the familiar combination of Packaging Gambling with Sex... 1 online gambling and sex. Cultural Differences in Youth 3 Gambling Images of young women in Gambling Gifts for Kids 4 various stages of undress are part of the visual aesthetic of Games or Gambling? 5 online gambling, and the Award Announcement 5 language used in conjunction with them is full of sexual Spotlight on Research Centres 6 double entendres. NS Website Seeks Ban on VLTs 7 BoDog.com commercials Gambling & Pop Culture 8 urge potential participants to Play Harder and Titan Current Publications 9 Poker shows the exposed * * * cleavage of a young woman, News from Centre 10 with the message to Keep 11 your hands full for a while. Upcoming Events Source: Gambling Online Magazine Continued on page 2 Continued from page 1 Players can use the code page ad in Gambling Online and potentially dangerous. handsfull to receive a small Magazine that Our players Gambling disorders which bonus on their first deposit. suck. Get your piece of $4 tend to socially isolate at-risk million every month while youth may interfere with the you chew them up and spit development of real-life them out. Brunson advises, relationships that can have a Let me teach YOU how to protective effect on some beat these clowns. youth. Furthermore, the high incidence of co-morbidity Teens are particularly with alcohol and drug abuse, vulnerable to the seductive raises additional concerns promises of gambling. The about high-risk sexual elusive dream of easy money activities. and its inherent escapism can seem all the more appealing Using sex to sell gambling when bound up with the degrades both women and promise of sexual power and men, obscures the hard social desirability. The sexual reality of gambling and images distract from the makes risky behaviour questions of probability and attractive to a vulnerable odds of winning. The segment of the population. In one full page ad for beautiful girls draped on the This kind of imagery eZplay.com in Gambling arm of the high rollers in deserves further study and Online Magazine there is an magazine pages, on celebrity vigilance, and should be image of the bared torso of tournaments and gambling addressed as a part of a very young woman, with themed films make it seem prevention and awareness her torn jeans unzipped and all the more credible. This is programs aimed at her hands clutching her a world where the size of adolescents. tanned, toned midriff. The your chips really do count. headline says It doesnt come much eZier than this. While encouraging high risk The logo for eZplay is behaviour in teenage males digitally tattooed near her is of major concern on its navel. own, the potential for problems with these images Challenging appeals are goes further. Young men made to the masculinity of spending hours at their male viewers and readers. computers gambling online These images construct may well be spending gamblers as virile, desirable substantially more time with and powerful. The aggressive the fictional personas of brand of male heterosexuality highly sexualized and further encourages high risk completely passive young behaviour. The cowboy- women than interacting with themed site of Doyle real girls their own age. The Brunson (www. doylesroom. objectification of female com) announces in a two- sexuality is both denigrating Source: Gambling Online Magazine Cultural differences in youth problem gambling: A cross-cultural study of gambling behaviour among adolescents Stephen Ellenbogen, Rina Gupta, and Jeffrey L. Derevensky International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors ultural beliefs can determine Although the results need to be gambling needs to be replicated with C a wide variety of perceptions interpreted with some caution, based larger sample sizes, distributed across and attitudes about the world. on the small sample size, there were a more varied selection of schools in Since gambling behaviour can be significant differences between the greater metropolitan area. driven by these underlying attitudes, Anglophone and Allophone youth, Despite the limitations of this study, research into cultural differences with Anglo boys having almost as these results add to the growing body offers insight into which population many probable pathological gamblers of evidence indicating that youth from groups may be more at risk for as their Allophone counterparts, different cultural backgrounds are gambling problems. This information despite showing only half the amount not equally at risk of developing can be used to develop more effective of youth who gambled on a weekly gambling problems. More prevention programs, treatment basis. importantly, the present results efforts, and for informing legislators None of the Francophone youth met suggest that minority groups may be attempting to develop effective social the criteria for PG, though one would at increased risk for reasons that go policies (Derevensky, Gupta, naturally expect the prevalence rate beyond poverty and other Messerlian & Gillespie, 2004). to be much higher. Taken with the disadvantages. Further research is A study by Stephen Ellenbogen, Rina results of previous studies, there is needed to identify these reasons. It Gupta and Jeffrey Derevensky looked strong reason to believe that the rate would also be important to verify into whether cultural background can of problem gambling and frequent whether the increased youth PG rates be related to the gambling behaviour gambling among Francophone youth in some cultural communities lead to among adolescents in Quebec. From may be significantly lower than that long-term repercussions and increase a cross-cultural research standpoint of other youth in the province. the risk of becoming an adult problem the situation in Quebec is interesting Consistent with numerous studies gambler. in that there are two large cultural indicating that gambling problems groups of relatively comparable are more widespread among minority References: socio-economic status with similar youth (Wallisch, 1993, 1996; Zitzow, education and social service systems. 1996), cultural and ethnic minority Derevensky, J. L., Gupta, R., & Winters, However, there are marked cultural individuals demonstrated the greatest K. C. (2003). Prevalence rates of youth differences between Anglophone risk for problem gambling. In the gambling problems: Are the current rates (English) and Francophone (French) inflated? Journal of Gambling Studies, present sample, these were most 19, 405-425. Quebecers which go beyond linguistic commonly adolescents of Italian, differences Hispanic, Arabic, Portuguese and Nower, L., Derevensky, J. L., & Gupta, A convenience sample of 1273 Chinese decent. R. (2004). The relationship of Quebec high school students (605 impulsivity, sensation seeking, coping These results support the conjecture and substance use in youth gamblers. males, 660 females, 8 unspecified) of Derevensky et al. (2003) that the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, aged 12-18 was divided into three wide variability in prevalence rates 18(1), 49-55. linguistic groupings: Anglophone of youth problem gambling reported Wallisch, L. S. (1993). 1992 Texas survey (English), Francophone (French), and in recent Quebec studies may be due, Allophone (other). They were asked of adolescent gambling behavior. Austin, in part to cultural and linguistic Texas: Texas Commission on Alcohol to complete five instruments: DSM- factors and not because of conceptual and Drug Abuse. IV-MR-J, the Gambling Activities and methodological difficulties. The Wallisch, L. S. (1996). Gambling in Questionnaire (GAQ) IFPI, EMT and authors point to the need to take into FACES II. Texas: 1995 Surveys of adult and account cultural differences when adolescent gambling behavior, Executive The results suggest that cultural examining prevalence rates and in Summary. Austin, TX: Texas affiliation did have a determinative directing prevention initiatives. Commission on Alcohol & Drug Abuse. effect on youth gambling, with A compelling question remains as to Zitzow, D. (1996). Comparative study Allophone (those whose mother why cultural differences in

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