Sawt Falasteen - European watchdog takes aim at online gambling, gaming among youths

The 46-member bloc, which launched its project at the start of a two-day conference in Rome on Tuesday, is seeking to help countries tackle the problem as online gambling and gaming grow in popularity among young people.

"It is only a minority (of adolescents) who experience addiction-like symptoms," Orsolya Kiraly, a researcher at the Eotvos Lorand University's Institute of Psychology in Budapest, told the conference.

"But in these cases these lead to severe negative consequences and functional impairment," she said.

Excessive online gambling and gaming are particularly dangerous for children, whose brains and personalities are still developing, she said.

The dangers include mental and physical health problems ranging from family conflict and sleep disturbances to bad eating habits and poor physical hygiene, Kiraly said.

The Council of Europe's Pompidou Group, which coordinates anti-drug and addiction policy and is in charge of the new project, said in a 2024 report that gambling and gaming products were deliberately crafted to make the activities "as immersive and addictive as possible".

Detailed research on the topic is not yet widely available, but the World Health Organization has already identified disorders from online gambling and gaming as public health concerns.

- 'Conflicts of interest' -

Gambling disorders could affect 26.4 percent of adolescents who are gambling on online platforms, and 16.3 percent of those gambling using sports betting, Kiraly said, citing recent research.

More video games, meanwhile, are incorporating gambling-like features, including "loot boxes" -- items that can be bought within video games that contain other unknown objects.

Boys are more affected, while girls are more at risk of addiction-like disorders from social media, Kiraly said.

"There is a great need for more research in this area," she said.

"The industry has a lot of data but they don't share it or they share it only with researchers who have conflicts of interest."

The global gaming industry could exceed $300 billion in revenue by 2028, doubling since 2019, according to a 2024 report by the consulting group PwC.

Italy is one of the largest gambling markets in the world, with 148 billion euros ($125 billion) spent in 2023, up from 89 billion euros in 2012, said Elisa Benedetti from Italy's National Research Council.

- Adults 'desperate' -

The Council of Europe hopes to help states to fix a problem that most of its members do not even have strategies for yet.

Experts said one of the issues was the contrasting ways in which people of different ages deal with the stigma and the difficulties.

Simona Pichini, director of the addiction centre at Italy's National Health Institute (ISS), pointed out that the national Italian gambling hotline most often received calls from adults.

"When do they call? When they're desperate, when they arrive with no money, no house, outside the family. They call at the end of the problem," she said.

It was a marked contrast with young people.

"Not youngsters. They don't perceive the problem," she said.

K.AbuDahab--SF-PST