ABSTRACT

The purpose of our study is to analyze the different aspects of gambling in some teenager collectivities in Romania, because this is the age category the most exposed to this issue and because we could not find any references concerning pathological gambling in our country. The study included 500 school-teenagers from Cluj, Salaj and Bacau. A structural questionnaire was applied to the teenagers and another 20 questions about their age, gender, family, income, school, toxic abuse, gambling preferences, the frequency and the amount of money they use in gambling etc. The results of the study were as it follows:

- 6.8% of the tested teenagers were pathological gamblers, with a ratio of 4.66% for the male gender.

- the average age of starting gambling was 13.25  1.51 years old.

- the majority (82.35%) prefers group gambling and only 17.64% prefer individual gambling

- 47.05% gamble very often (almost every day) and 38.23% gamble often (once a week)

- gambling was the reason for school absenteeism in 64.70% of all the teenagers and for modest results at school in 52.94% of them

In conclusion, the results of the study revealed very concerning aspects of the increased incidence of gambling among Romanian teenagers, compared to the ones in UK (6% of them are gambling).

KEYWORDS: gambling, teenagers