Everywhere teens look they see messages like, “Look over here!” “No, look my way!” “Buy my product!” “This product will save you!” Colors, language, designs, everything online is used to attract their attention. With the rise of youth presence online, progressively more ads are pointed towards them, and many influencers completely rely on children and teens to support them financially. Teens need to become more aware of the ways they are being targeted by gambling in their everyday lives, and how impactful exposure to early gambling truly is.

According to Mass.gov, by the time students make it to high school, 60-80% of them reported having gambled in the past year. This is only students who have actively gambled, not the percentage of students who have been exposed to gambling via TV, ads, parent figures or friends.

Dr. Raffaello Rossi a lecturer in marketing at Bristol University said, “The research has found many children do not even recognise these promotions, known as content marketing, as advertising. It warns that this may lead to children following betting companies on social media, making it more likely that they sign up with them when they turn 18 and can legally gamble.”

Gambling tactics and advertising have been pushed to students, and destigmatized amongst youth. Companies or individuals preying on children for money is the exact opposite of fostering growth amongst the younger generation, unless that growth is the growth of an addiction. 

It is shown that youth exposed to “harmless gambling” at the age of 12 led to a four times increase for those same students to engage in problem gambling as a teen according to coalitionforaging.org. This harmless gambling can be in the form of pull of tabs, low stakes sports betting, paying to win on apps or buying mystery boxes from YouTubers. 

“A teen’s brain, with an underdeveloped logic center, isn’t wired yet to weigh risk and make healthy choices,” the Department of Public Health of Massachusetts explained.

It is incredibly important to prevent children from being exposed to such gambling ads and media until their brain is developed properly. Any platform pushing these ads towards youth are purposefully encouraging teens to start gambling young. Especially with influencers, and the recent uncovering of the Mr. Beast illegal lottery allegations, new and more addictive forms of gambling are being introduced every year. 

Children are often the main audience for influencers on YouTube or TikTok, meaning their products and content are promoted for youth. Illegal lotteries are commonly seen used by influencers to “give back to their fans”. An illegal lottery is classified as any situation where individuals pay for a chance to win a free prize. 

Captainsparklez, a large influencer with over 10 million followers said, “illegal lotteries are something that creators can find themselves innocently doing, without realizing they are doing something completely against the law.”

Any giveaway to paid subscribers or promotion to buy mystery boxes are considered illegal lotteries. One common, overlooked example of an illegal lottery would be Willy Wonka chocolate bars; paying for a chance to win a free chocolate factor would require licensure from the state. Most illegal lotteries are pointed towards children, promoting them to purchase mystery boxes with titles like, “How I got airpods for $4!?!?”. Without advertising towards youth, many businesses’ profits would largely diminish. The fact firms depend on children at all for income, when children do not work, is wildly inappropriate. Some influencers go as far to show kids step-by-step how to navigate their shops, explaining what numbers on a credit card to input, and how to ship products. Promoting kids to buy products behind their parents’ backs should not be allowed under any streaming services, and it is ridiculous that people would go to such lengths to earn a quick buck.

Overall, we need to be more alert about what children are being exposed to in media. Many of the things they watch can heavily influence their development in more ways than we know, sending teens down dark paths of addiction. Look out for the youth, help make sure platforms, businesses or influencers practice legitimate, authentic business models and advertising.