Other recent studies cited by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board found 75% of U.S. college students gambled in the past year, 58% of 18\u201322-year-olds engaged in sports betting, and 33.7% of youth under 18 gambled in a one-year period.<\/a><\/p>\nScranton School District Superintendent Erin Keating was part of the conversation.<\/p>\n
She said from a school district perspective, they want to teach their students about digital health and safety, and that includes online gambling.<\/p>\n
Keating said online algorithms are built to hit the brain\u2019s reward system, including gambling.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that’s a piece to digital health and safety that we need to teach because we can’t ignore the fact that our kids are digital citizens,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Keating said school district staff need professional development on digital health and safety to help pass those lessons onto students.<\/p>\n
Almond has developed a curriculum for K-12 students, Winters said.<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Christopher Hughes<\/p>\n
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The City of Scranton<\/p>\n
Healthcare professionals, educators and more join in on a conversation about launching a problem gambling prevention pilot in Scranton. <\/p>\n
Legal gambling<\/p>\n
Winters said the prevalence of problem gambling really ramped up after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law prohibiting state-approved sports gambling. Online betting became legal on a state-by-state basis.<\/p>\n
But months before, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 42 on Oct. 30, 2017, that legalized online gambling, expanded casino gambling, and permitted video gambling terminals at truck stops and airports.<\/p>\n
Online sports betting in Pennsylvania followed both decisions in May 2019.<\/p>\n
Winters said ages 13 to 18 is a critical intervention point for people. And those in that age group don\u2019t often think of online sports betting in the traditional gambling sense, since many bets are now placed online instead of at a smoky casino or a horse race.<\/p>\n
Bets can be placed in real time on foul shots during a basketball game or pitches thrown during a baseball game.<\/p>\n
But Winters also said that early invention needs to happen at all different levels for all different age groups, including at primary care offices, pediatricians and through other marketing tools.<\/p>\n
Kyle Popish founded WholePath Wellness, which offers addictions counseling including for problem gambling. He said he treats people ages 14 to 70.<\/p>\n
He was excited by Tuesday’s conversation. He offered one solution: establishing more group support meetings in the area.<\/p>\n
Right now, there\u2019s only two Gamblers Anonymous meetings available \u2014 one on Sundays from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at St. Matthew\u2019s United Evangelical Church in Scranton, and a second on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. at the Waverly United Methodist Church, 105 Church St., Waverly.<\/p>\n
Scranton fits<\/p>\n
After the roundtable, Cognetti said the city is excited to have started a relationship with Almond and the groups who turned out for the meeting. <\/p>\n
She said the city is the right size for the type of pilot program that Almond is offering.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are small enough that you can work a problem with a group of collaborators. You can get in a room with you know two three dozen folks and have a manageable group of people leading something. It’s also big enough, you know, a city of 80,000 people, a region of 600,000 people \u2026 it really makes an impact,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Winters wants Scranton to be the model across the country and the world for a community-wide public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-243794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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