Teen Gambling
Parents and Texas Hold-em Poker
By Daniel Muniz

Is the explosive growth of Texas Hold-em Poker destroying our country’s teenagers? Or are their parents too neglectful or too fainthearted to exercise enough parental guidance and oversight?

Below is a sensational teaser that my local news station ran:

Too bad that the news report did not attach the following to their teaser:

And especially when there are full-grown adults who refuse to exercise something called parenting.

I am often dismayed when I see hyped up news stories about adolescent problems of this nature. It reminds me of the hype surrounding teenage drag racing in which everyone else is blamed except the parent. How can a teenager be drag racing in a car unless someone has handed him some car keys?

The same goes for teenage addiction to gambling.

How can a kid be losing money in the amounts of $200, or $500, or $700? The money has to come from somewhere?

There are three probable ways for a kid to get a hold of that kind of cash. A parent is giving it away or the teenager is selling something that he or she already owns or lastly, he or she is stealing it.

But regardless of how a teenager acquires the money, everything still points to the parents. Parents have to know what their teenagers are doing in their spare time. And they also have to be aware of the impact of what it is that they are doing.

If parents are giving that kind of money to their children to gamble with, then it is their negligence that is creating this addition. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine a grown mature adult refusing to question the disappearance of a television set and other electronics from their child’s room. And if they do ask questions, is their probing just shallow enough so that an adolescent can weasel his or her way out with a flimsy excuse?

And for such a spineless parent, it is even more difficult to exert any kind of influence when their offspring is now a college student and squandering money.

But perhaps the worst possible outcome is that a teenager has resorted to theft in order to support a hedonistic habit.

Unfortunately, some parents simply close their eyes and then ignore any obvious red flags until the situation has spiraled out of control.

Yet it amazes me on how many people are willing to abdicate their responsibilities when it comes to guidance and oversight. And what is worse is when they blame someone else.

Yes, the cable television shows are immensely popular, especially since Texas Hold-em is a very fun game to play. But it is simply reckless for a parent to hold television responsible for their child’s actions.

My in-laws host Texas Hold-em poker games for money during their many family gatherings. And it is quite a family affair and I try to play as often as I can. There are plenty of my wife’s cousins, uncles, and aunts to play against. Even my mother-in-law is a sly and fierce competitor (she has run me off the table several times).

However, some of us who play are paycheck to paycheck people (including myself). We established a rule to only allow the purchase of $20 worth of chips and only recently allowed the opportunity to buy another $10 to get back into the game. We have had discussions of perhaps occasionally setting an exotic limit of $50 or higher but that has never come to fruition. And even if it does, it will most likely be a once a year event.

But our boundaries are firm and non-negotiable. Most of us sitting at the poker table have families and responsibilities that have precedence over the desire to play for higher stakes.

And the same should go for children. Parents must be willing to establish boundaries and help their children develop personal responsibility and help them realize the consequences of their decisions. I can understand that maturity is another story when dealing with adolescent teenagers and college kids. Admittedly, some parents are terrified to establish boundaries or to talk to their children about responsibility. But if that is truly the case, then those individuals need to take some parenting classes.

There are parents who do not engage in any form of gambling. And that is fine and anybody is perfectly entitled to raise their own children the way they see fit and I respect that. However, such a parent still has to explain the wiles and allure of gambling to their children for the preparation of adulthood.

As for myself, my son is still a toddler but I do not see any problem in teaching him the basics of card games and the nuances of probability when he gets older. And I won’t mind if he does play Texas Hold-em when he becomes a teenager but as a parent, I want to teach him personal responsibility and the effects of consequences. I am also the type of parent who believes that “the burnt hand teaches best” so I am not going to be bothered if he loses a small amount of cash.

But when my son becomes a teenager, is he going to be playing with hundreds and hundreds of dollars?

I don’t even have that kind of an allowance even though I am a full-grown adult with a good income. And that is probably the hard scrabble environment that I expect my son to grow up in.

As for the parents who do have that kind of discretionary income, it just boils down to establishing boundaries and teaching responsibilities which is the same for anybody of any income level.

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