Fun or fault?

Last year, Alex O’Neil chose not to use financial aid to pay for his Portland State education. Instead, he started to use money he won from online gambling Web sites.

“I decided I was going to pay for school with it. I wasn’t going to pay for loans,” he said. “Then the site I was using went through some legislation and shut down, and I had to drop out of school. That was fun.”

Despite having to drop out, O’Neil said he continues to gamble online.

Over the last few years, college campuses have seen a rise in the popularity of Internet and cell phone gambling among students. The topic is currently the subject of a study being conducted by Oregon Health and Science University, with cooperation from PSU.

There are many opportunities for online gambling, both on the Internet and on cell phones. In order to play, students simply have to log on, upload money from their bank account and win or lose money from other players online.

The study will examine how big a problem online gambling actually is for college students. It will gather information by asking for students’ opinions, as well as increasing awareness of problem gambling resources available to students, said Gywnn Ashcom, outreach coordinator of PSU’s Center for Student Health and Counseling.

“It’s something new, even for me. I didn’t realize the prevalence of the problem,” Ashcom said. “It’s something you don’t see. It’s behind closed doors. No one knows how long people are spending online.”

Spreading the word

Online gambling is a problem many students initially see as a “fun activity,” Ashcom said, but students can easily start squandering extra money from student loans or parental contributions.

“It’s a growing problem on college campuses,” Ashcom said.

O’Neil said he doesn’t consider using online gambling sites, such as www.partypoker.com and www.fulltiltpoker.com, both of which also offer ways to play for free, to be a big problem among college students.

“I haven’t met a lot of people that have dug themselves a really big hole with it,” he said. “I think it’s also just fun for people. You stick a few bucks of financial aid in it and have some fun. Not much different from going to your parties and buying beer.”

Results of the study will be used to create seven online gambling-related questions, which will be added to the National College Health Assessment survey, said Jackie Kasten of the OHSU Behavioral Health Clinic, who is overseeing the study. The survey, distributed nationally to colleges by the American College Health Association, assesses students’ habits and behavior, as well as perceptions of health.

Although the study is still in its planning stages, Kasten said, working with Ashcom and PSU to help increase awareness of the problem among students is a good start.

“We’re increasing awareness and outreach at the college level and really trying to identify if there is a problem,” Kasten said. “We want to make it very accessible for people to find out about treatment.”

At PSU, advertisements for problem gambling resources are becoming more present on campus, such as ads for www.1877mylimit.org, the free Oregon problem gambling hotline, Kasten said.

“We’re assessing problem gambling and how to refer and treat it with more awareness things around campus–brochures, posters, door knockers,” she said.

PSU’s informational campaign is important because March is Gambling Awareness Month, Ashcom said.

“We’re just kind of starting out, finding out how to get the information out,” she said.

“It’s going to be an evolving thing, along with everything else we do that’s health related.”

Looking ahead

The idea of the study came from other recent demographic studies conducted at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University about online gambling, Kasten said.

“PSU is more urban. The average student age is a little older,” she said. “We wanted to see from a state level what differences there are. From a state level we’re trying out find out if there’s a problem, and how big it is.”

Gathering information from college students will also give OHSU and PSU some insight into how educated the average student is about gambling as well, Kasten said.

“We’re also trying to really get an understanding–if we can get these questions–to find out what students’ understanding is about how gambling is funded and what the perceived impact is on their academic life and personal life,” she said.

Some students, like Max Nardo, don’t think there is anything wrong with playing online poker.

“I got started when I was 17, right before I was able to legally play,” Nardo said. “I played professionally for about two and a half years, and put myself through school with it. I kind of got pretty good over the course of playing.”

While Nardo said he attributes his success to playing responsibly, there are many students who have not been as lucky.

After O’Neil started using online poker sites, he said it wasn’t long before he decided to take his gambling seriously.

“I built my bankroll up, had a good time, went to Reno for the summer of ’07, lost all my money,” he said. “I came back to Portland after Reno and slowly built my bankroll back up.”

He said there have been highs and lows to his gambling.

“It’s certainly been a roller coaster,” O’Neil said. “There have been times I definitely wished I had a real job. It took me a long time to get the right mind to play it the responsible way. We all have our ups and downs, but hopefully I’ll come out all right.”