Chronicle of Higher Education: IPFW's McClellan on student gambling

IPFW Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs George S. McClellan writes about gambling and students in the latest edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Vice Chancellor McClellan writes:

Several years ago, as I was reading through the postings on an Internet bulletin board on blackjack, I came across a message asking for information on where one could find $25 or $50 Texas hold 'em games. Today one can find such a high-stakes poker game online, in a nearby casino, at some guy's house, or in any number of college residence halls or fraternities, but back then they were less ubiquitous.

What caught my eye about the message, however, was not so much the topic as the source: The message had been posted using an e-mail address at my own university. After a bit of sleuthing, I discovered that the account belonged to one of our undergraduates. That's the day I began wondering about student involvement in gambling. What I learned surprised me, and the subsequent growth of gambling among students — along with the seeming ambivalence to it on the part of many in higher education — has given me more cause for questions than for comfort.

The history of gambling in the United States through the late 20th century has been described by I. Nelson Rose, a law professor at Whitter Law School and a scholar in gambling studies, as consisting of three waves of activity: the colonial period to the mid-19th century, the conclusion of the Civil War to the early years of the 20th century, and the Great Depression to the early 1990s.

Ken Winters, of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, who is a leader in gambling research, and I have suggested that a fourth wave of gambling began in this country in the mid-1990s, spurred by rapid development in tribal-controlled gaming and increases in the number of states permitting casino gambling. That wave has grown to vast proportions with the advent of online gambling, an increase in the number of casinos, and the explosive growth of poker, both online and at brick-and-mortar venues. While there is some evidence that a contraction may have begun, there is little doubt that the eventual result of the fourth wave will be expanded gambling activity across the nation.

In the mid-1970s, it was estimated that the lifetime prevalence of gambling among adults in the United States was just above 60 percent, but by the mid-1990s, a similar study indicated the rate had grown to over 80 percent. More-recent data are lacking, but it seems reasonable to assume that the rate may well have increased in light of the growth of gambling activity in the fourth wave.

Not surprisingly, there has been a concurrent increase in gambling activity by college students.

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Many students are gambling in ways that present no risk for them other than the loss of discretionary funds. Most of us in higher education have not heard much about or from those students in terms of their gambling while in college. For other students, however, gambling may constitute violations of campus policy, athletics-association rules, or the law — for which they could suffer varying consequences. Still others exhibit behavior that classifies them as problem or pathological gamblers: From 5 percent to 9 percent of male students and 1 percent to 2 percent of female students fit that category.

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No doubt the story of 18-year-old Jeff Simon, who spoke with a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2006 about struggling to stay in college in Pittsburgh under the weight of debts from online gambling, is more representative of the many students whose dreams are threatened, deferred, or defeated as a result of gambling.

That there is an intersection between gambling and higher education is nothing new. Some of the first colonial colleges were financed, at least in part, from lottery proceeds, and gambling on college athletics is as old as college athletics itself. States have turned to lottery revenues or taxes on other forms of gambling for decades to help support higher education.

Today colleges use various forms of gambling to help raise money for scholarships, student programs, and other worthy causes. We have licensing agreements allowing the use of institutional logos on gambling paraphernalia. We are the unwitting conduits for online gambling through our computing infrastructure. We are the focus of a substantial portion of the legal and illegal sports betting in the United States.

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Nonetheless, a recent study showed that few colleges have policies or programs explicitly focused on gambling behavior, and it appears that college gambling remains well under the radar for many of us.

Model programs, however, are emerging.

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A blind is a bet that a poker player is forced to make once every eight or nine hands when playing Texas hold 'em, a game that has made gamblers, once viewed as degenerates, into demigods in the popular culture. Most young people can tell you that if you are at the table, then you are going to have to post your blinds, and that how you play your blinds is integral to how well you do at the table. We in higher education are at the table of the social phenomenon that is the fourth wave of gambling. How will we play the blind?

Comments

[Casey Cox]

I had a classmate in law school who planned on spending his first year post-grad playing online poker. As far as I know, he resides somewhere near Lake James, lives comfortably off of his poker earnings, and is a member of the Indiana State Bar.

[Kevin Carroll]

Gambling . . . hmn buying insurance, playing the stock market, crossing the street, driving (well that's supposed require "insurance"). You know . . . I think poker provides good lessons in life.

It helps you assess where your skills are and whether you are meant for say business, law or . . . the arts.

It's a good growing tool and just quite possibly lets you make your mistakes in life early and then get on.