Children Learning to Gamble by Playing Online Games
I am in my early thirties and, like many other adults, I spend some of my spare time by escaping in the fantasy online game called RuneScape, published by Jagex Ltd, a UK company based in Cambridgeshire. The game is of course also very popular among the younger generation, and I have come across players who say they are as young as 8. The game is apparently the most popular free-to-play MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) in the world. A quote from the Wikipedia article about RuneScape says “The game has approximately 10 million active accounts per month, over 156 million registered accounts, and is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world’s most popular free MMORPG.” For a more detailed explanation, visit the official website or read the Wikipedia article.
Players control “avatars” and fight creatures and each other, or they can train “skills” to enable them to make items that they can wear or sell for in-game profit. The economy of RuneScape is very complex, with a large aspect of the game relating to the value of items, some of which are needed to increase your skill level. Thus, just as in the real world, money in RuneScape plays a vital role in achieving perceived success.
Recently, there has been an explosion in gambling activity in RuneScape, through various player-run games such as dice rolling, or betting on the outcome of certain other events which are statistically predictable – and therefore favour the intelligent, wealthy individual who decides to set up a quasi-casino structure. This has indeed happened. A description of the gambling games run by players can be found on the RuneScape Wiki.
From experience, I would say that the main body of gambling controllers are the highest level players, and the richest players, most of whom have been playing the game for many years. As such, most of them happen to be at least young adults. The players who place bets, and eventually on average will lose money to the gambling controllers, could be of any age, so will more than likely include a vast number of children who play the game.
In relative terms, huge sums of money are gambled on these games, with the potential jackpot being very large. Also, the potential losses could also be large. It can take a very long time for a player to earn the kind of money staked in such games using any other aspect of the game, especially if the player is less skilled. The less skilled players are, by definition, younger on average than those with greater abilities, who have been playing for longer. This means that the players with the least money are, just as in real life, younger than those who are creating the gambling problem.
If children are gambling in such online games, in an unregulated fashion, perhaps winning vast sums of virtual money, they may come to think that gambling is a viable route to earning money. Indeed, I often see people saying to each other that they found it a good way to make quick money, but in fact they don’t appreciate the statistical probability that they will lose in the long term if they just kept on going. I would personally like to see all gambling banned from the game of RuneScape because I feel that it is having a lasting detrimental effect on the minds of young people who gamble in the game, but would not otherwise be gambling if they were engaging in real-world scenarios. When these young people grow up and become independent, there may be a learned behaviour from their experience of gambling in RuneScape that encourages them to use real world gambling as a means of making money. I do not believe that this is a far-fetched possibility. In fact, I think that since their first encounter with gambling would be in a light hearted, fun environment, children could come to see gambling as fun and enjoyable. It will perhaps pose an increased attraction to them in the future.
Of course, there is the counter-argument that this is harmless gambling in that it does not involve real money, and is a virtual experience that can teach young players that gambling does not pay off in the long term. But this relies on the assumption that the players do in fact experience that long-term loss. It also relies on the assumption that the young mind is capable of appreciating the risks versus the rewards involved, with no education other than the in-game chat between players and, if the player is (rarely) so inclined, by reference to articles such as that referred to above on the Wiki. There is also a huge amount of hype between players who have won vast sums of money, which gets seen/read by hundreds of other players who happen to be in the vicinity of the player saying they have won. This could, and in my experience usually does, create a desire for the reader to actually go and try out the activity under discussion.
In conclusion, I think that all forms of gambling in RuneScape should be banned from the game. This should be done by the immediate removal of all items in the game that are involved in gambling, such as dice. In my experience, dice in the game serve no other purpose. In addition, any form of gambling between players should be banned. Any contravention of this rule should result in both participants losing their accounts.
-Runescape player from the UK