Easier online gambling is a risky bet for Washington state youth
As Washington state’s superintendent of public instruction, my first priority is to make sure our kids are safe and ready to learn. That is why I am strongly opposed to a proposal under discussion recently to allow widespread online and mobile sports betting in our state.
With easy access via laptops and smart phones, the potential for massive profits has brought large, out-of-state interests to Washington, hoping to cash in on a rapid expansion of online gaming.
It’s extremely important that we not place their profits – which will mostly flow out of state – ahead of the safety of our children. That is exactly what will happen if easy access to online and mobile betting is legalized.
I am hearing with increasing frequency from teachers, principals, parents and most importantly, students that smartphones are transforming young people in ways we never imagined.
Access to instant knowledge is powerful, but as with all technology, it comes with risk – primarily the massive increase in isolated online content consumption – including violence, adult sexual material and gambling.
A growing number of phone apps and online content is marketed specifically to young people. The goal of these developers is to create reward systems that make students want to keep playing, often to the detriment of their sleep, other activities and connections to peers and family.
As they play these online games, and have success, it leads to a surge of dopamine in the brain - the same chemical attributed to many addictions.
Most children are exposed to these systems of rewards well before they have fully developed the consequence-understanding part of their brains and before they have fully formed a social construct of right and wrong.
Gambling, violence and sexual content simply do not get contextualized the same for young people as they do for adults with fully formed brains and defined social constructs.
Opening up online gambling to anyone who can access technology would make this risk much worse. With the ability of game designers to maximize the compulsion to play repeatedly, I have no doubt that many children will become even more susceptible to addiction once they start accessing these apps.
And they will access them! Online gaming proponents promise they will include safeguards like facial recognition to restrict children’s access. But online spaces are very hard to police, and we all know that enterprising kids will find a way to circumvent those protections.
The “you must be 18, click here’”or “you must be 21” warnings don’t work. Our students are blowing right through those warnings to access adult content, violence and potentially online gambling if it is legalized here.
It’s already challenging enough to keep our kids from using technology to access things that they shouldn’t. Let’s not make the situation worse by embracing widespread online and mobile sports betting.
I acknowledge that there are responsible adults in Washington who would like the opportunity to wager on sports. There are ways to do this, including a bipartisan proposal in the Legislature to allow strictly regulated sports betting on the premises of tribal casinos where children are not allowed to enter.
Fortunately, bills that would authorize less regulated online sports wagering appear to be dead this session, but may come back at some point.
Allowing betting from laptops and smart devices anywhere in the state will inevitably make such gambling all too accessible to our children. That’s not a healthy outcome for students or our state.
This story was originally published March 1, 2020 at 12:00 PM.