Gambling addiction is more serious than originally thought.

The University of Wisconsin student accused of murdering three Verona roommates, to whom he owed thousands in gambling debts, last June unfortunately forged a connection between gambling and murder, resulting in news coverage nationwide on the prevalence of gambling among college students.

The 19-year-old student has been charged with shooting an acquaintance who helped him place bets with an offshore gambling company in Jamaica.
The suspect, Meng-Ju “Mark” Wu, told police he had lost $15,000 gambling between April and June 2003 and had withdrawn $72,000 from his bank account between December and June.

Gambling-addiction counselors and experts said they have noticed a rapid increase in gambling addictions in teenagers and college students. Especially prevalent is offshore Internet gambling on both professional and college sports.

However, counselors often do not see addicts until their problems have spun out of control, resulting in situations such as failing out of school, amassing huge financial losses and in rare situations, creating tragedies like the triple homicide.

Since gambling is about as risk-free as drinking and using drugs, more efforts should be directed at prevention. The growing number of betting sites and the ease with which users can keep problems hidden suggests the problem may be best helped through prevention.

USA Today reported in August that government officials and industry experts estimate losses on Internet gambling among Americans could total more than $3 billion in 2003.

Internet gaming is illegal in the United States; most of the websites operate out of the Caribbean or Latin America, but the sites are accessible to anyone in the world with access to a credit card. Because these businesses are based in other countries, no one knows how large the online gambling industry is.

Credit-card companies, such as Visa, are stepping up to the challenge of prevention by not allowing users to place bets on Internet gambling sites with a charge card. This is one step in the right direction.

Students with easy access to the Internet can lose not only extra spending money, but also tuition, rent money and money they do not have so they cannot pay back an accrued debt.

Federal legislators have called Internet gambling “the crack cocaine of gambling.” Meanwhile, Indian-run casinos are multiplying in Wisconsin and other states.

Perhaps these sites and casinos should have warning labels informing users about the dangers of a gambling addiction. The real danger may be that, as in a drug-abuse cycle, gamblers who are addicted must overcome the dilemma that their chosen solution is often the problem — gamblers try to get out of debt by continuing to gamble.