A new study has revealed that a huge 45% of high school students in Italy gambled for money in 2024.
This statistic is higher than the average of 23% across European countries, with Italy the highest, followed by Iceland at 41% and then Greece (36%). It was Georgia which had the lowest rate with this being 9.5%.
The insights come from a European research project, named the Europe School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. A total of 113,882 students aged 15 to 16 years old took part across 37 different European countries in 2024.
Generally speaking, boys report notably higher gambling participation than girls, both on average (29% versus 16%) and in most countries. Iceland is an exception, where the prevalence is nearly equal, with 42% of boys and 41% of girls having gambled in the past 12 months.
Teen land-based gambling among boys is almost double that of girls
Amongst the students involved in the study, and those who reported gambling for money in the past year, the vast majority (85%) chose to gamble in physical locations like bars and clubs. In Italy this was 98% and in Cyprus 97%.
It was found that the prevalence of land-based gambling among boys is almost double that of girls (25% versus 14%). Two out of three students in the study did it through online platforms, either exclusively or in combination with physical locations.
“The highest proportions are observed in Sweden (81%), Slovenia (77%), Kosovo (76%), Iceland (75%), Montenegro (75%), Bulgaria and Slovakia (74% each), while the lowest proportions are found in Italy (28%) and Spain (44%),” the research states.
Online gambling engagement has been found to be more than double of that amongst girls, with boys at 20% and girls at 8.7%.
While the percentage of students who have gambled for money in the last year is high in some countries, the proportion of student gamblers exhibiting potential harmful gambling behavior ranges from less than 5% in Liechtenstein, Czechia, Faroe Islands and Monaco, to a maximum of 22% in Kosovo.
Featured Image: AI-generated via Ideogram
