It’s a habit with Christophe*. A sort of reflex, which has followed him for years. Coming out of a Parisian bar-tobacconist, this forty-year-old carefully puts his two Cash scratch cards in the pocket inside his jacket. In this establishment where customers – mostly older men – parade, he is the last to have bought his game of the day. “I play at least once a week, he says. But never alone: this second grid is for my mother!”
Christophe laughs, recounts the scratch games he experienced with his mother. “At one time, we played a lot of Tac-O-Tac, he recalls. It was great: we were scratching, and we might have the chance to spin a wheel on TV!” Only, our player has never obtained the four qualifying “TV” for the TF1 broadcast. “But with my mom, we still tried our luck. That’s the essence of gambling: having the feeling that you can win, that victory is very close.” A moment of complicity, started very early and that he never gave up. A few meters further on, the owner of the cafe shakes his head above his own scratching grid. “I love to play, but I would never let my son play. My wife would kill me!” he laughs.
Like Christophe, French people who have discovered a passion for family gambling are legion. Sports betting, horse racing, scratch games and draws… A survey of 5,000 young people aged 15 to 17 by the Mutual Aid and Psychological Action Society (Sedap), published on February 17, reveals that more one-third of teenagers surveyed (34.8%) had gambled at least once in the year preceding the survey. Among them, nearly 46% practice this activity with their mother and 36% with their father. Prohibited to minors by law, gambling can thus be financed by the parents themselves… and lead to risky practices among children.
“We have scraping evenings”
Before the pandemic, Kevin, 33, remembers playing “very regularly”, that is to say “at least once a week”. “But I slowed down with the confinement, he warns. There, it became much more casual.” Le Lorrain is a longtime regular at PMU bars. “It started with my father: he loved playing Tiercé and I accompanied him. He bought me scratch games to pass the time. I remember that I often played Banco!”, he recalls . Kevin was then about ten years old. “I wanted to put myself in the tiercé later, like my father, but I didn’t have the patience. You have to know the horses, the jockeys… Impossible to play at that as an amateur.”
Desiring “more immediate” results, the young man then turned to draw games, such as lotto, EuroMillions, or other grids, which he often scratched with friends. But as with his parents, his practice remains largely confined to the family circle. “Sometimes we buy a notebook with my wife, he gives as an example. We sit around the table, with a glass of wine, and we have scraping evenings!”
Sometimes his eldest, now 8 years old, joins the game. “Once, at the end of 2016, my son scribbled a grid for me with numbers that I played. And bim: we won 1,000 euros. I had just lost my job… It was really lucky!” he exclaimed. An opportunity that is, however, extremely rare. “Anyway, we made him play again another time and he lost, he laughs. So good …” But he assures him: in his home, we remain reasonable.
In other families, this practice, a priori innocuous, can however pose a problem. “As with alcohol, there is a very widespread reflection: that by starting to play in families, we reduce the risk of dependence or addiction in adulthood. But it is a received idea”, asserts Indra Seebarun, research officer for the association Addictions France. The minors questioned by Sedap began in adolescence: at 13 years and 3 months on average.
“That’s an average, which means some started later… And some started much earlier. Parents don’t give alcohol to a 7-year-old child. There’s no no reason to give him a scratch money game either,” observes Marie-Line Tovar, head of the Center for Innovation and Experimentation on Excessive Gambling. Among the minors questioned in the panel, we find Claire, 15 today, who explains that she started “around 7 or 8 years old” with scratch games “about twice a month”, as well as on her birthdays. Or Colleen, 17, who has been scratching since she was 8 “about four times a week”.
Bring “experience”
Their two cases illustrate the general trend well. The games played by minors are essentially scratchcards (78.4%), far ahead of lotto-type draws (48.4%). Horse betting, poker and even slot machines are practiced by around 17% of young people. But the phenomenon in real increase remains sports betting, which more than a quarter of minors (28.3%) took part in.
The phenomenon is no stranger to Claire and Colleen: after spending their early years scratching, they now indulge in betting online, on their own phones or on their parents’ app. Across the entire age group, this means that 27.3% of under 18s play scratch card games, around 16.9% draw games and that one in ten young people practice sports betting. .
A hobby largely introduced by parents. “The only device for controlling the age of players is based on that of their identity, both physically and online, underlines Morgane Austruy, coordinator for the prevention of excessive or pathological gambling and the protection of minors at the National Authority for The Sedap study has shown us that there are different gambling behaviors in this age group, such as the purchase directly by the young person at the tobacco shop or the provision of a player account owned by an adult, which allows children to access gambling with the complacency of their father or their mother.
In a Harris Interactive survey released in 2020 by The Parisian, 71% of parents acknowledged having already offered scratch cards to their minor children for no particular reason, while 18% of those already playing themselves had invited them to place sports bets online. “Scratch games, sports betting… All of this often seems trivial to parents, who often have the idea of giving their children the experience of surprise, observes Stéphanie Ladel, addictologist. But this desire to bringing pleasure introduces at the same time risky behavior.” Parents are also aware of this: according to the Harris Interractive survey, the vast majority of them (93%) explained that they consider gambling to be a “dangerous” activity for minors.
Prevention rather than cure
Rightly: “A young person aged 15 to 25 is six times more likely to develop an addiction by indulging in it in this age group”, notes Indra Seebarun, of Addictions France. A risky practice that can be difficult to spot, although clues exist. “It is possible to find one’s way with the Canadian index of excessive gambling, based on nine questions, indicates Morgane Austruy. Does the gambler play to recover? Has he bet more money than we could afford it? Is he gambling more and more money to maintain his level of excitement?” Combined with the frequency of play, the responses may indicate risky behavior in both minors and adults. But still it is necessary that the player is transparent. “The principle of a process that traps us is that we don’t brag about it,” asserts Stéphanie Ladel.
Especially since the addiction is obviously not genetic. “A minor whose parents are excessive gamblers will certainly be more likely to be one in turn, suggests Marie-Line Tovar. But children whose parents play recreationally are not necessarily immune, because the future behavior of the young person is unpredictable, so parents must be aware of the risk involved.
To avoid risky behavior, specialists recommend doing more prevention upstream. “If parents want to introduce gambling to their children, it is necessary to explain under what conditions it is done: we only play when we have surplus money, when we are well surrounded … And you don’t play to save yourself from discomfort either.” Rules that apply to both children and adults. “There is no age to fall into addiction, warns Stéphanie Ladel. So you might as well take precautions.”
*Name has been changed.