My 17-year-old nephew is a gambling addict. His addiction has led him to partake in illegal activities like stealing from his family and the community. Money and electronic goods had gone missing from the house for months. My sister suspected that a former nanny who had been let go had had her keys copied because the things would go missing with no indication of forced entry into the house. She realised that the culprit was her son when the school called her to report that there had been a series of cellphone thefts in the school and that my nephew had been caught in possession of a teacher’s cell phone.

When questioned, the nephew admitted to stealing. He had not bought anything new with the profit from his ill-gotten gains, so it was a mystery what he did with the proceeds of his crime. When questioned on what he did with the money he made from theft, he had been vague until he was threatened with jail time. Only then did he admit that he had signed up to a gambling website on his phone. On the website he had faked his date of birth in order to make himself eligible to gamble. At first, he made small bets and won; then, he started losing the more he played. He felt compelled to play regardless of the outcome, hence the theft. My sister found out that he had been gambling for close to two years.

The fact that from the age of 15 he was able to gamble in a country that has the legal gambling age being 18 is mind-blowing to me. These online casinos are bypassing the law by making it easy for minors to gain access to them. They are putting profit above the well-being of people. I do not excuse my nephew for his portion of the blame because he is the one who registered on the website and lied about being of age. He is completely responsible for that part, plus for the stealing that came as a result of his gambling addiction. However, the government has a responsibility to make sure that its laws are enforceable. Big gambling businesses cannot be allowed to profit illegally from the folly of youth. Biologically, minors cannot be expected to act rationally because their brains are still developing. As a result of still-developing brains, they are more likely to engage in irrational, dangerous and risky behaviour, and they are moved to act on impulse rather than logic. This makes them need the protection of the state.

Online gambling concerns need to actively discourage young people from gambling. Not only that, the government needs to make sure that the law that says you have to be 18 in order to gamble is rigorously adhered to by online gambling concerns. The online gambling dens need to insist that people who join are able to prove without doubt their identity, age and, therefore ability to gamble. It is futile to have laws that cannot be enforced. The government needs to protect those who cannot protect themselves and in this case, children. The state should have the duty of a parent; just as the state provides financially (in terms of grants) to kids from limited means, the state has a further responsibility to make sure that minors cannot access activities that are meant for adults.

If the school had decided to prosecute my nephew for the theft of his teacher’s phone, he would be charged as a minor and, therefore be punished with diminished capacity – he is not viewed as an adult. I believe that the state should act as a nanny and make sure that children cannot access potentially damaging activities like online gambling.

Tell us: do you agree that the state should take more responsibility for protecting young people from gambling and other dangerous activities? If so, how? And if not, what could be done to address this problem?

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