Young people and gambling: an empirical research.

Gambling appears today as a heterogeneous, multidimensional phenomenon (Caretti et al., 2010; Whelan et al., 2007) that involves also young people. In our country, there is a progressive increase in pathological gambling in the youth population and in the disadvantaged social strata also supported by strong media pressure to spread the use of gambling, thus fuelling the mentality of relying on fate rather than the skills or commitment to succeed in life. The purpose of this research is to investigate the knowledge, perceptions and behaviours associated with gambling in a sample of 523 Italian teenagers attending high school and detect the presence of subjects with pathological or risky behaviour related to gambling.