Children & Online Gambling – Where’s Your Credit Card?

Children & Online Gambling – Where’s Your Credit Card? Online gambling has been around for many years in the form of sites hosting online poker and the like. Such sites have flashy pop-up ads that attract young people. These sites will often offer free credits when joining. This allows the user to experience the thrill of winning, without having them pay any money.

People quickly get hooked, and very soon are buying credits with a credit card.

These sites are authenticating a user based on their ability to provide credit card information. Since most parents have a credit card (or a debit card), credit card information for children is easily obtainable. Since children are impressionable, their habit can quickly spiral out of control, and there is potential to rack up huge bills in the process.

Stories are coming out that young children are now breaking into houses looking specifically for credit or debit cards to feed their online gambling habits.

In New Zealand, lotto have recently ramped up their gambling offerings to the public. In addition to the recently introduced online lotto purchases, there is now a new game called ‘bulls Eye’, allowing for punters to choose one number to win a million dollars. In fairness to Lotto, they do set an upper limit that can be played within a certain period of time. However, the risk of children being hooked on online gambling sites remains a risk that parents must be aware of.