More teens are getting hooked on gambling. Parents say it often goes undetected

Education More teens are getting hooked on gambling. Parents say it often goes undetected April 5, 20265:00 AM ET Sequoia Carrillo LA Johnson/NPR Kim Freudenberg, a longtime teacher in San Francisco, knew that raising two boys meant a lot of hard conversations. She warned them about all the usual dangers: drugs, alcohol, sex, social media, riding a bike without a helmet. "Never once did I even think that I needed to say 'gambling,'" she recalls. One day, when her oldest son was 11, he was watching someone play video games on a livestream and clicked on a link in the comments. It took him to an offshore online casino. Sponsor Message Education How a SCOTUS decision on birthright citizenship could impact education access There, he got sucked in — to blackjack, poker, roulette. He could use items from the video game as money. Soon he got hooked, but the signs of his addiction were hard to spot. "It's not like he was just holed up in his room 24-7," Freudenberg says. "He ran track. He played soccer. He was a great student." Until he dropped out of college at age 19. That's when his mom found out that he had been gambling for nearly half his life. He'd sold things from around the house to keep up with his debts, borrowed money from friends and, then, eventually, started stealing money from his parents. It's a problem that educators, researchers and parents like Freudenberg say is affecting a growing number of young people, most of them boys. A recent national survey from Common Sense Media found that 36% of boys age 11 to 17 in the U.S. have gambled in the past year. "It's a lot of kids," says Michael Robb, the head of research at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that promotes digital safety for kids. "A third of kids is a lot of kids." He notes that playing fantasy football with friends or making a March Madness bracket may be harmless. It could, for example, help strengthen male friend groups. But for a small subset of boys, Robb adds, things can get out of control: "Th...