By Amy L. Kennedy
The teen brain is a powerful yet precarious machine, wired to take risks for optimal rewards while development and judgment evolve. As a former educator, I understand the power of this period — it provides teens with enormous adaptability in approaching life’s challenges and navigating complex social and environmental situations. As a long-time mental health advocate, I also acknowledge young people are forming neural pathways and dopamine patterns that will affect their future selves, for better or worse.
That’s why online gambling — in its many forms and iterations — raises grave concerns. Betting platforms are uniquely positioned to tap into the most impressionable aspects of the teen brain, often in ways that are hard to detect until behaviors are already taking hold. And for the platforms, business is booming. While the full scale of the online gambling market is yet to be seen, individual platforms offer a telling snapshot: Kalshi, which maintains that betting improves information accuracy by putting money behind beliefs, is valued at about $11.2 billion, and Polymarket at roughly $10.8 billion.
In many respects, we already understand where this leads, as our legal system is just beginning to reckon with social media product design that juries found to be intentionally addictive and harmful for young people. In other ways, online gambling presents a concerning unknown, presenting potentially more complex and catastrophic issues, especially for adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 12 to 21.
What Parents Need to Know
Many parents assume online gambling is out of reach for their children, but that is no longer the case. Prediction markets like Kalshi allow users to bet on everything from sports to reality television, often beginning at age 18, while traditional sports betting is typically restricted to those 21 and older where legal.
Even with these age limits, young people are still contributing to the rapid growth of these platforms, frequently using VPNs or the IDs of family members or friends to bypass restrictions. Parents must take a closer look at whether their children are being exposed to — or actively engaging in — these activities online.
Even before a young person ever places a formal bet, many are already being conditioned by online games that mimic gambling mechanics, from loot boxes, in-game rewards, and fantasy football, priming them for the transition. Meanwhile, their favorite celebrities are acting as the faces of crypto casinos and online gambling destinations, normalizing and glamorizing the behaviors.
The Unique Risks Online Gambling Poses to Youth
While social media can bleed into real-world outcomes socially, mentally, and physically, online gambling adds another layer: a direct financial dynamic that can quickly and dangerously envelop a young mind.
In an interview with MarketWatch, professor Michelle L. Malkin explains how platforms offer “bonus bets” with cash prizes of $100 or more. “So now you have a young person betting $100 instead of $5, and if they win on even one of those bets, what’s the chance they’re going to be OK just going back to $5 when the difference in that win is so substantial in their life?” Malkin said.
Young people are already out-gambling their older peers, with between 2 and 7 percent reporting a problem compared to about 1 percent of adults. Early exposure often leads to patterns that persist later in life. Losses can also trigger panic — especially when the money involved is tied to everyday needs like tuition, lunch, or allowances. While all addiction is pernicious, gambling is associated with particularly severe consequences. According to The National Council on Problem Gambling, 1 in 5 gamblers has attempted suicide. Many more experience emotional distress that stops them from seeking help.
A quick glance at public forums reveals how this plays out in real life. One Reddit user wrote, “Hello, I (22m) have a massive gambling issue that has put me in a bad spot. I am in debt ($2700) so it is manageable IF I can stop myself. I know that if I tell my parents then I will 100% stop but I cannot bring myself to do it. There is so much shame involved.”
Importantly, parents might not even know when gambling is an issue. A poll from 2024 shows that only 2% of parents believe their children have gambled online, yet approximately 36% of young men alone have gambled in the past year — a figure that doesn’t account for the growing number of young women also affected.
What Comes Next: Policy, Prevention, and Protection
Most mental health advocates agree that online gambling requires immediate attention, but this is a complex issue that deserves layered, coordinated solutions.
From a policy standpoint, I echo the Kennedy Forum’s position that all online gambling should be banned. It is linked to a variety of negative outcomes for people of all ages, including intimate partner violence, financial issues like bankruptcies and lower credit scores, and comorbidities like alcohol use and mood disorders. Unlike social media, which can provide positive effects for youth given appropriate parameters and design, there is no evidence that online gambling provides any meaningful benefits to youth.
At the same time, we should apply the systemic approaches that have proven effective in addressing other mental health and addiction challenges. For instance, primary care providers still do not screen for many mental health conditions, including online gambling, even though early identification can keep problems from escalating. Federally, bipartisan efforts like the POINTS Act allot money from gambling for prevention and intervention efforts, demonstrating that meaningful action is possible, even if prohibition is out of reach. And in my home state of New Jersey, new legislation seeks to regulate or completely ban certain types of markets.
School-based mental health services can also play a vital role in prevention, as the infrastructure already exists to deliver services at scale for teens who may be affected or at risk of becoming so.
We cannot overlook the role of families and communities. Gambling addictions are often worsened by shame and isolation. If a young person finds themselves struggling, fear of judgment or punishment can drive the behavior further underground, making it harder to recognize and address. What helps most is not secrecy, but trusted relationships with parents, caregivers, or other supportive adults and peers who can respond with openness rather than blame. These human connections are often the first and most critical step toward interrupting harmful patterns and helping young people find their way back to healthier choices.
About Amy Kennedy
As a former educator and mother of five, Amy Kennedy brings a deep personal and professional commitment to improving youth mental health. Her advocacy focuses on social media safeguards, school-based treatment models, and behavioral health screening and prevention. She is particularly interested in the broader economic implications of youth mental health, including long-term investment.
In addition to her leadership at The Kennedy Forum, Amy serves on several boards and advises regional and national organizations and companies, including American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and The JED Foundation, the NJ Governor’s transition team and the Board of Trustees of Stockton University in her beloved home state of New Jersey.To stay connected to news from The Kennedy Forum and its co-founders, please sign up for emails!
