I've noticed that many of the online casinos that I play at stipulate that players must be 18 years of age in order to play. I don't think that this is right in the sense that players should be only able to play based on the minimum land based age requirement in order to engage in gambling. If a land based casino and more importantly the government has decided that the age should be 21 then I think that online casinos and poker rooms online should really adhere to that on a per country basis. I know that most of them out there say that you have to be 18 and as a parent there's no real way that I can protect my kids and still stay on their good side. I would be nice if they had better age verification systems and stuck to keeping the legal online gambling age at 21. I beleive that this would help protect our children.

My children are reaching that 18 year mark and I know that a lot of their friends are very much into the online poker and I really don't want them to get involved. Certainly they can do very well but at the same time I know that they could also loose a lot of their hard earned money...

I'm just really venting and wish that the age was 21 but at the same time if it were 21 then I guess that I wish it would be 31 and so on, lol...

Velma

Hi Velma,

I do agree with you however I beleive that what online casinos are doing here is making the legal age the average that it is to gamble in other areas throughout the world. The average age in Europe and Canada is 18 years of age to gamble legally so this is what they're really adhering to. Most of the online casinos out there ask players for their age and then use this to be the determining factor as to whether they permit them in playing. Unfortunately the screening systems for age verification isn't really that good.

Much better systems could be implemented and put into place if more formalized systems that were synced with actual governmental departments. This is still however a little ways away before we get to the point where we can actually do this unfortunately.

I think that you're worry is a genuine one unfortunately I don't think there's much you can do about it. The best solution IMO would be to educate your kids and let them know more about the issues that can arise as result of gambling problems.

Angie

It would be far more ideal if there were better systems in place for managing this and that parents didn't have to worry about their kids getting online and playing. Would be great if there was a centralized registration and monitoring system for this to prevent any sort of issues with minors playing online. Minors who play online is already a big issue and will continue to be for years. So someone with a little ingenuity that comes along and develops and successfully implements something like this will sure come out a big winner!

There are age verification systems in place at some of the online casinos out there. Online casinos that are scrutinized far more by government bodies surely have ways of screening their players to ensure that they are of age to play at online casinos. I think that there should be better protective measures at all online casinos and some sort of universal database of information that can be shared would be ideal as well. I think that it would certainly help prevent the younger generations from developing problem gambling habits.

I do however think that Poker is likely something that the younger players will indulge in more then casino type gaming as it's the popular fad out there these days.

Danny

Talking to your kids about gambling and the problems it can bring on is key. I think that you really need to focus on communication if you think that it will develop into a problem with your kids. I know that poker is a big fad and poker is very addictive but perhaps with some supervised gaming it wouldn't be so bad. If you were to be playing with them and setting limits that you stick to it may be a valuable lesson to them!