Young Players are the Future of Gambling

Age of Youth

Let's discuss the definitions of the terms "young" and "old."

• According to the Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary, a young person has not reached the age of majority.
• In jurisdictions of most European countries, the gambling age is 18 years.
• For example, in Russia the gambling age is also 18 years.
• The United Nations defines 'youth' as a transient state between childhood and independent adult life. It includes persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years.
• In 2010, a sociological research conducted at the University of Kent by the Economic and Social Research Council in London showed that Britons believe that the age of youth ends at 35 years, the old age starts from 58 years.

Although the difference in estimates of the United Nations and Britons in determining the age of youth is as much as 11 years, we will consider the age till 35 years as the age of youth for the reliability.

Does the Sex Influence Gambling Activities?

Howard Shaffer, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, cooperates with a giant of online gambling industry called Bwin and studies the behavior of online players in casinos, poker rooms, and betting office of the company. Dr. Schaffer analyzes the data transmitted in real time, instead of questionnaires, i.e. he gets accurate information about the true behavior of people during the gameplay. A research with the participation of 50,000 gamblers showed that the difference between males and females became insignificant, namely a few percent. The only noticeable difference is that females make bigger bets and win about 15% more bets than males. Therefore, we can safely assume that gender is an insignificant factor in our study.

Age and Gambling

A research that dealt with the activity of players in different age categories was carried out in 2012-2013 in the United Kingdom. Look at a figure below: the horizontal axis displays the age, and the vertical axis shows the percentage of individuals involved in gambling.

We can safely assume that the older you are the higher is the probability that you will become a gambler. The most popular gambling games (the lottery and scratch cards) are in demand mainly among older people. However these data are not dramatic enough to affect the outcome of our investigation.

Comparison of Achievements

To make our comparison of achievements in gambling of people depending on their age reliable, it is necessary to select such types of gambling activities that are popular and require at least basic knowledge and skills. In fact, there is no sense in comparing who rolls dice better. So, let's start.

1. Sports betting

It is the obvious fact that the knowledge of players must have a significant impact on the skills in sports betting and it usually comes with age.

However let's take a look at the story of Frank Rosenthal, a Las Vegas legend. If someone does not know him, he was played by Robert De Niro in 1995 in Casino directed by Martin Scorsese. His father was both a mathematician and the owner of several trotters, so the 13-yer-old boy began to wager on racing. Every day he subscribed to and viewed the 30-40 daily newspapers, and read some editions that were in shop windows. Rosenthal was the author of the famous phrase:

You don't determine what team is going to win, but what team offers the best value.

There is one more interesting thing: Frank Rosenthal gained a reputation of one of the best experts on sports betting and gambling in the United States by the age of 30 years, i.e. he was still young! Later he worked as a consultant at several bookmakers and his reputation allowed him to manage four casinos and three hotels in Las Vegas. However his forecasts became quite ordinary. They ceased to be appropriate, sudden, and almost always correct. The urgent desire to collect every bit of information, which had made him famous in the youth, left him.

Bob Voulgaris, another young wunderkind, earned a fortune by betting by 30 years. He found it normal to make bets in the amount of one million dollars per one game day of the NBA, and the percentage of correctly predicted outcomes reached the incredible 70%. He really used to defeat bookmakers! He achieved everything when he was young.

It allows us to conclude that youth wins in sports betting.

2. Poker

However the Journal of Gambling Studies conducted an interesting experiment in 2012. Three hundred participants were divided into two groups: experts and amateurs. Then they played 60 same, predetermined hands in Texas Hold'em. It was established that the difference between the amounts of money earned by both groups was extremely insignificant. So, we can conclude that the success in poker basically depends on luck if equal opponents play with each other.

Let's take a look at the winners of the World Series of Poker Main Event over the past 10 years and their age at the moment of their triumph.

A 21-year-old Joe Cada is the youngest player who has ever won the WSOP bracelet. In fact, there was no winner whose age exceeded 30 years over the last seven years! Poker used to be considered to be a game for old people. However nowadays young players prevail.

It allows us to make a conclusion that young people are the best poker players.

3. Blackjack

The next popular casino game is blackjack. Let's be honest: if you know the basic strategy of the game and you do not count, you can rely only on the luck. If you follow the basic strategy, it has a crucial role in maximizing the payout percentage.

If you have a ten and a five, and the dealer shows an eight, you are obliged to hit! And it is a question of luck whether you win or not. Does the age influence the outcome? - To be sure, the answer is negative!

Let's discuss examples. A group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology created Strategic Investments Company in the 1990s. They used to earn playing blackjack, using professional card counting. The team of students mastered this art under the control of Bill Kaplan, a graduate of Harvard Business School. The precise sum of their proceeds is still unknown, but their profits reached millions of dollars.

MIT Blackjack Team used to have over eighty players. Almost all of them were students and graduates between 20 and 30 years of age. They were players who were able to challenge odds and succeeded in winning at blackjack tables. Therefore...

It allows us to conclude that youth wins in blackjack.

4. Slots

The next kind of gambling games is slots. In Las Vegas slots generate almost half of the total income of all casinos. The age does not have any difference when you are playing a slot machine either online or offline. Slots have a fixed payout percentage, so you may know exactly how much you will lose in the long run. However slots are more popular among older players. Many people used to think that slots were a choice of the poor, uneducated individuals and pensioners. However researchers at Oregon State University refuted these stereotypes. In fact, 55-year-old housewives with college education and an annual household income over $55,000 prefer slots.

This study also allowed highlighting the reasons for playing slots. There are four of them:

• Utilitarian. People are just looking for any activities. They are not concerned about winnings or losses in the game. They just want to kill time.
• Excitement. People like noise and hustle-bustle of casinos. They like frequent victories and a sense of awe in anticipation of the jackpot.
• Multi-purpose motivation. This reason is often related to young, uneducated individuals with low income. They are attracted by the opportunity to win money and gain a reputation of a lucky man.
• Relax. The educated and rich gamers who usually play betting small amounts just want to enjoy interesting conversations and funny atmosphere, take a rest, and relieve stress after a hard working day.

Users don't require any skills to play slots, so they are mainly chosen by those who want to take a rest and have fun. Profits are a secondary motive. The age does not affect the outcome of the game. You solely need luck to win while playing slots.

It allows us to conclude that the chances are equal in case of video slots.

So, the score is 3:0. Youth wins. Only one category out of four, namely slots, remains without a winner. Young players under 35 years of age won the other three categories. Youth won in sports betting, blackjack, and poker. This allows us to make the final conclusion:

So, youth beats experience in gambling!