The online game: the ludopatía of the 21st century
The profile of the compulsive gambler has changed with the emergence of new technologies. Online gambling and online games open the doors to young people to a world at their fingertips and often beyond the control of their parents. We offer you some keys to know what the alarm signals are.
Jaime, aged 17, has a smartphone that accompanies him on the bus to the institute. On the way, after connecting to their profiles on social networks, he gains lives in Candy Crush and makes strategic moves in Crash of Clans. Dove, sitting next to her, does the same. They do not engage in conversation beyond the greeting, although they go to the same class. In the afternoon, Jaime, during the planned breaks of his studio, takes the opportunity to make a bet at BET365. He also continues to win lives and make strategic moves in the aforementioned games.
New technologies have enormous communication and educational potential, and also carry some risks. An increasingly common objective in the family is to analyze these risks and consequences in order to manage them as soon as possible. Without fear of the new, with the illusion of making benefits for each one and for our family of everything that affects us.
The boom of online bets
The freedom of access to the Internet offers us a large amount of content and services, including social networks, games and a "new technological boom": online betting. For our young people, an increasingly attractive world.
The term "online betting" has started to sound a lot around us. We see posters at bus stops, on sports team shirts, and we get numerous advertising messages when we connect to the Internet. It refers to all forms of gambling that involve the betting of money in some type of fortuitous event and that is done through the Internet, either from the computer, the mobile phone or any other device with access to the Network.
Since the game was legalized in Spain in 1977, numerous modalities have appeared on the market. With the entry into force of the Law on the Regulation of Gambling (Law 13/2011), in just a few years, operators in the Network have proliferated rapidly. Currently there are different modalities such as poker, bingo, casino games, betting and contests. . Consequently, the number of online players has skyrocketed and, with this, there has been an increase in people with gambling problems related to Internet gambling.
In recent years the number of registered users has increased, since it is compulsory with the new law. It has gone from the estimated 195,000 of 2011 to more than 1,500,000 registered online players at the end of 2014. This can be seen in the Report of the General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling.
The change of the game modality has also brought with it a modification in the profile of the player. A while ago, the profile of a man between 30 and 40 years old, whose objective was to earn money or recover what was lost predominated. Currently, the profile is found in young people between 15 and 35 years old, many of them students or university graduates. Each time they play more hours leaving aside their daily reality, family, studies and friends. In the case of adolescents, the added factor of, in many cases, not being controlled by parents is added.
In a study conducted in 2013 at the University of Valencia, with a sample of 4,000 young people between 12 and 20 years, it was found that 18% of adolescents had made online bets.
The addictive potential of online games
The online game mode also includes a series of characteristics that give it an addictive potential that is much greater than that of face-to-face play. To start with, it highlights the visual stimulation that gets attention. Currently there are numerous keys that allow to generate illusion of control in the player as the possibility of playing alone or playing a small amount bet.
It also favors the brevity of the time elapsed between the bet and the result, because it constitutes an immediate reinforcement for the player. This last variable is of special relevance in the period of adolescence.
We must highlight the ease of playing through any device connected to the Network, which together with its availability 24 hours, make online game much more accessible than face-to-face. In this same sense, you can play in front of the home computer, or with the discretion provided by the applications downloaded to your mobile, without worrying about what people around you will think, contrary to what happens in a bar or a casino
María Martín VivarY Daniel Rama Victor. Psychologists Consult Dr. Carlos Chiclana
