Schools Seek to Educate Kids on Dangers of Problem Gambling

BBC News reported on new resources prepared by the CCEA in the form of five lessons that will help teachers at schools across the UK make their pupils of age 11 to 14 aware of the harm that may come from gaming and gambling.

The Lessons Offer a Positive Approach to Gaming

The lessons put up by the CCEA cover a variety of topics and a wide range of games involving gambling such as sports betting, scratch cards, and video games betting. They are designed to be included in the lesson plans for the subject Learning for Life and Work.

They are built up in a way that does not intend to preach on how bad gambling and gaming are. The lesson plans take a positive approach to these leisure activities a lot of students enjoy in their free time. However, they also aim to make pupils aware of the dangers involved in these activities. 

An important part of the program covers the way gambling companies advertise their products to potential customers and how they use what has been found about how the human brain functions to entice people to gamble and then keep them playing longer and longer.

The lessons also cover in-game spending products that pupils often do not see as gambling, such as loot boxes, which have already been classified as exploitative, according to a report by consumer organizations in the EU. Loot boxes’ link to problem gambling has also been proven by research conducted in collaboration between the University of Plymouth and the University of Wolverhampton.

Gambling Education Is Not a Novelty in the UK

While CCEA’s initiative will cover schools across the whole country and will be a widely implemented program, it is not the first time pupils are getting educated on gambling awareness.

The gambling harm charity Gambling with Lives piloted an educational program on the dangers of gambling harm in January 2022. The program was targeted at students of age 15-16 and was introduced in 15 schools in Northern Ireland. The charity chose just Northern Ireland as according to research on gambling patterns, Northern Ireland is leading in terms of gambling participation in the UK. 

The focal point of the educational program introduced by Gambling with Lives was a film with people that have suffered from gambling harm sharing their experiences and experts talking about the implications of gambling addiction.

According to research conducted by the Gambling Commission in 2016, 340,000 adults in the UK are experiencing problems with gambling, while a report from 2018 estimated that 55,000 youngsters of ages 11 to 16 have compulsive gambling behavior.