Experts at the University of Sydney say the rise of online sports betting is fuelling problem gambling.Professor of psychology Alex Blaszczynski says internet sports betting is changing the face of problem gamblers seeking help.He says the image of someone sitting at the poker machines for hours is being replaced by young men gambling on the net.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/11/3162154.htmI was a games addict
Children are falling asleep in the classroom after playing computer games all night, a concerned teacher warned this week. Recovered addict Tom Meltzer knows why they’re hooked‘I would say I was playing 15 hours a day at the peak,” says self-confessed gaming addict Daniel, now 24. “I kind of half block it out because I hated school so much but the worst year I can remember was when I was playing EverQuest. I was 16, and I was getting up at two in the morning and going downstairs on to my mum’s laptop to play. I was up until eight, and then I’d get back into bed saying I was ill.”Daniel’s story is not so different from my own; we were both miserable as teens, and we both played truant in the fantasy world of games. Daniel’s attendance fell from 100% in his first year of secondary school to 45% in his last. Mine was less extreme – I would miss, on average, a day a week. In both our cases, every day spent off school was a day spent playing video games.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/11/i-was-games-addict