Unicanal and the Municipal Council launched a campaign to prevent and raise awareness about the risks of online betting.

Three teenagers are in the back seat of a car placing bets online from their cell phones. The mother is behind the wheel, she watches them in the rearview mirror very focused but without knowing what they are doing and she asks them: Is everything okay? This is a prevention and awareness campaign about the risks of online betting, especially among young people between 12 and 18 years old, carried out by the UNR Unicanal channel for the Municipal Council of Rosario. There are three spots designed to warn and discourage these practices and to promote the search for help. The strong message with which each one closes is: “Betting is never a game. Break the silence. I asked for help".

For the UNR Psychiatrist and Rosario Councilor Lucas Raspall, betting has always existed, legal and illegal, but what changed history today is the possibility of making them online through the mobile phones to which the kids are connected. between seven and eight hours a day, so it is absolutely easy for them. In addition, it is promoted by big brands, cups, tournaments, t-shirts, which results in a “naturalization of the bet” that makes it look like something entertaining, cool and they get hooked. “They start playing and then the problems come,” he explains.

Statistics show that they gamble a lot at night at home, locked in their room. But where it began to become visible was in the school, which “is a sounding board and there all the phenomena bounce off the walls and take on another volume.” The difference between what happens in a home that is a private environment compared to what happens at school is that you end up seeing it. “Since last year and this year it just exploded, many kids were first seen gambling during recess and then also in the classroom,” says the teacher.

As with substance use, this practice is becoming more frequent