Summer 1998
This edition of Beyond the Odds includes the results of a study conducted by Dr. Ken Winters, researcher at the University of Minnesota, on gambling behavior by students on two Minnesota campuses. Clearly, a majority of these college students are gambling and a significant number are experiencing problems.
Gambling problems affecting college students occur in a variety of environments: casinos; bars; and in residence halls. Some are part of a compulsive gambling problem. Others are the result of foolish, risky behavior. Most importantly, many of these problems could have been prevented.
The poster on page 4 was part of a prevention program at the University of Minnesota-Duluth initiated by students on a local campus to alert other students to the risks associated with gambling. The two posters on this page and page 3 have been created for a campus problem gambling awareness program planned for this fall.
This edition of Beyond the Odds also reports on a new Gambling Prevention ducation Program for Southeast Asian youth. In 1995, the Southeast Asian Community Coalition for Youth and Families and the Minnesota Institute of Public Health developed a comprehensive Healthy Youth and Families curriculum that included sections on gambling as well as alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, gangs, violence, sexuality and employment for high school youth and parents. The new program is adapted from the gambling section of the earlier curriculum to make it age and culturally appropriate for Hmong, Laotian and Cambodian middle school youth.
—Roger Svendsen
In This Issue
Who's Calling?
Ages of Hotline callers seeking help. Comparison of 1992 to 1997.
