A recent study by the Annenberg Adolescent Communication Institute at the University of Pennsylvania which was conducted by telephone shows that a record number of college students are flocking to online gambling websites.

The study was conducted on students between the ages of fourteen to twenty-two years old and it was concluded that sixteen percent of college aged males are participating in online gambling which is a jump from 4.4 percent in 2008 to 16 percent this year - a rise of almost 12 percent.  It also found that high school students who gamble online monthly had increased from 2.7% to 6.2%.

The US is known to be one of the top Internet gambling markets in the world despite the fact that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act came into effect in 2006 in order to try and curb online gambling in the US.  In fact, the law has not deterred gamblers at all and there has actually been an increase in Internet gaming since the Unlawful Internet Enforcement Act was created.

It was also found that the monthly and weekly rates of both online and offline gambling among high school females between the ages of 14 and 17 years rose more than 9 percent since 2008 but that the gambling rate of high school as well as college-aged females is still much less than that of male students.

The survey included 835 respondents during 2008 and 596 respondents during 2010 between the ages of 14 and 22.  The researchers calculated that on a national basis over 400,000 college-aged males aged 18 to 22 gamble online at least once and week and over 1.7 million gamble online at least once a month.  It was also calculated that approximately 530,000 high school-aged males gamble online once a month.

Dan Romer, ACI Director stated in an institute news release that this dramatic increase in college-aged male youth gambling online shows that payment restrictions on these sites are no longer an obstacle to young people.

Although online poker players have been lobbying lawmakers to change the current laws there has thus far not been any significant stride towards that goal.  Many states have attempted to increase tax revenue to help balance state budgets by adding casinos.