Youth gambling during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Gambling is one of the oldest social pathologies. In antiquity people played dice for money,today bets have largely moved to the Internet. The aim of the presented research wasto describe the scale of gambling among adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic,which contributed to the fact that young people spend a significant amount of time online,what makes gambling much more dangerous for minors. The study involved 96 secondaryschool students who completed the Lodz Questionnaire for Gambling Problemsamong Adolescents. This tool allows you to describe the results on three scales: the PlayingFrequency Scale, the Gambling Prevalence Scale and the Irrational Gambling ThinkingScale.Research has shown that during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 2015 data,the frequency of gambling by young people increased significantly. Some of them experienceproblems in their everyday life because of this.Secondary school students constitute an important group to whom prevention programsin the field of addiction to gambling should be addressed. Especially the widespreadaccess to the Internet, a large proportion of the time spent online and the COVID-19pandemic are important risk factors that may account for the exacerbation of gamblingproblems in the youth group.