Protecting Kids in a Digital World Takes More Than an Age Gate

How do you keep underage children from gambling when the world is encouraging them to do otherwise? Dr. Jennifer Shatley, the executive director for the Responsible Online Gaming Association (ROGA), says it takes a village and recommends being honest and transparent.

The recent multibillion-dollar settlement between Meta and U.S. states should prompt a broader conversation about how we protect young people in an increasingly complex digital world.

Whatever your view of the litigation, there is an important principle embedded in the resulting safeguards that include stronger age assurance, limits on teen usage, and increased parental controls. That underlying message is that protecting young people online requires more than simply telling them what they shouldn’t do.

That same approach applies to online gambling.

Talking Points

For years, preventing underage gambling meant telling youth they shouldn’t gamble because it’s illegal due to their age and, if they did so, it could have legal repercussions that affect their future.

But looking back at ineffective, and often counterproductive, “scared straight” messaging campaigns from the past, such as the DARE program of the 1980s, demonstrates the limitations of relying on simplistic “just say no” messaging for complicated behaviors young people encounter in the real world.

Nor is it enough for today’s digital world.

Today’s young people inhabit a completely different digital ecosystem than the Pac-Man and Space Invaders video games of my childhood. Today’s video games can include loot boxes, skins, in-game purchases, and other features involving money, chance, and items of perceived value. Beyond traditional video games are social casinos and “play-for-fun” products that can resemble gambling without necessarily having the same age requirements as regulated gambling or sports betting sites.

Young people may also encounter offshore and unregulated online casinos and sportsbooks operating without the consumer protections required in regulated U.S. markets. At the same time, legal sports betting has become increasingly visible within sports and popular culture.

Trying to prevent underage gambling by simply telling kids “don’t gamble” ignores the environment in which they are growing up.

A better focus is what we are teaching them about it.

Teach Your Children

There is a reason states establish a minimum age for legal gambling. Research has consistently identified early gambling involvement as a risk factor associated with later gambling-related problems. Age restrictions are not arbitrary barriers or moral judgements. They are an important protection for young people whose decision-making, understanding of risk, and relationship with money are still developing.

Regulated online operators have invested significantly in age and identity verification to keep minors off their gambling platforms. But even sophisticated technology cannot prevent an adult from handing a young person access to an already verified account.

Some parents may view allowing a teenager to place a small sports bet as harmless, particularly when the parent is supervising it. They may place a bet for their child, open an account on the child’s behalf or simply hand over their phone and let the child use their account.

But proxy betting circumvents the very protections designed to keep minors from gambling. It also sends a contradictory message that the activity isn’t appropriate until they’re older, unless a parent is enabling it.

This is why preventing underage gambling can’t be the responsibility of only one group.

Engaging a variety of audiences offers a better path forward.

Young people deserve honest conversations.

Teaching teenagers about gambling shouldn’t be an anti-gambling exercise any more than financial education is an argument against credit cards. The objective should be to give young people the knowledge and skills to understand an adult activity before they are old enough to participate in it.

We should help them understand why age restrictions exist. We should talk about probability, risk, and the difference between entertainment and a way to make money. We should help them recognize how digital products are designed to keep them engaged. And we should give them the financial literacy and critical-thinking skills to evaluate the messages and products they encounter online.

Parents need education, too.

Parental Progress

Many parents know their 15-year-old shouldn’t have a sportsbook account. Far fewer could explain the differences among a regulated sportsbook, a social casino, a sweepstakes product, a skins betting site, and an offshore gambling operator. Yet their child may encounter all of them on the same device.

Parents have an important role, but we can’t expect them to bear the full responsibility of guiding young people through a digital environment they have never been taught to understand themselves.

That is where public policy needs to evolve.

States should complement age restrictions and enforcement with evidence-based education for young people and their parents. Gambling concepts should be incorporated into financial and digital literacy programs. Regulators, educators, researchers, technology companies, youth-serving organizations, and the regulated gaming industry should collaborate on resources that meet young people where they are and reflect the environment they’re actually experiencing.

And those programs should be evaluated to determine whether they improve knowledge and influence behavior, not simply whether they generate attention.

The Meta settlement is part of a much larger societal conversation about how we protect young people in digital spaces. Age assurance and technology safeguards are important, but technology can only do so much.

We cannot prevent young people from encountering every gambling or gambling-like experience online. But we can give them the knowledge to recognize what they are seeing, understand the risks, and know why some activities are intended for adults.

The world has changed considerably since Pac-Man.

Our approach to underage gambling prevention needs to change with it.

Dr. Jennifer Shatley is the Executive Director of the Responsible Online Gaming Association (ROGA), representing over 85 percent of the legal U.S. online gaming market by handle. With nearly three decades of experience in responsible gaming, corporate social responsibility, public policy, and harm mitigation, she has pioneered many of the industry’s most recognized initiatives.

Jen launched the first broadcast advertising campaign focused on responsible gaming, created enterprise-wide innovations in self-exclusion and player protection technology, and developed Caesars’ Responsible Gaming Ambassador program, which has trained more than 100,000 employees and served as a template for today’s proactive risk assessment practices. Today, she continues to set the standard for responsible gaming worldwide.