For teenagers, online gambling is worse than crack, a devastating drug. The gut-punching words are from Simone Federpsychologist educator of House of the young man from Paviawhich tells Panorama about a dramatically growing phenomenon.
44.8% of Italian students between the ages of 15 and 16 have gambled. Double the European average. Around 170 thousand children between the ages of 15 and 19 have already been classified as problem gamblers in 2025. And the share of minors who play online, despite the bans, has doubled in the last six years.
From video games to online betting: the invisible trap
«Federico, even before he was 18, started playing slot machines in bars», he says Simone Feder. «He stole the gold from the house that you keep aside and never go to check: chains and souvenirs. Thanks to an older friend he went to sell it to spend the money on gambling.” Then he came of age «and he ate everything, starting with the 5,000 euros in his grandparents’ old bearer books. His mother was shocked and kept repeating that she had prepared him so as not to fall into the nightmare of alcohol or drugs, but he would never have thought about gambling.” Another boy won 42 thousand euros in one evening, losing the entire sum in four hours on online slot machines. «Now I will include it in the specific structures of the Lombardy Region» explains the highly experienced psychologist. «The process lasts a year and begins with the seizure of the mobile phone. We have had cases of children with mothers in the terminal phase in the hospital, who still remained attached to their cell phones to play.”
7% of minors dragged to the Pavia center by a family member or girlfriend “need residential treatment, which brings them back to normal life to rediscover feelings, emotions, to get out of addiction as if it were cocaine or heroin”.
The latest data Espad (research on the lifestyles and risky behaviors of adolescents), not yet published, highlight that in 2025 one and a half million students gambled, 340 thousand online. 7.1%, or 170 thousand students between 15 and 19 years old, have an addiction risk profile and 130 thousand have an even more serious “problematic” level. Between the ages of 15 and 17, 52% of girls have gambled and 66% of boys have gambled. “Theoretically it is illegal for those who have not turned 18, but it does not represent a deterrent,” he underlines Sabrina Molinaro of National Research Council. “The thing that breaks my heart is the growth in problem gambling among minors.”
From 2017 to 2024, the number of girls who say they have played increased by over 20 percentage points. «At the beginning of May, during a meeting in a school in Pavia, I found myself in front of some sixteen-year-olds who raised the problem», he says Simone Feder. “They let their adult friends go into betting shops to place bets, especially on tennis and football.” Stefano, fictitious name, is a former avid gambler, who lost the best years of his life to gambling addiction. «Gambling stole my adolescence», he says, «and even if I won 950 euros in one go I lost through lies, ambiguity and manipulating anyone who came close to helping me».
The psychological mechanisms of digital gambling among very young people
Stefano, who was followed by Casavatore addiction servicenear Naples, explains that «it all started long before the Covid pandemic, but with the lockdown the unbridled rush to bet was unstoppable». The boy secretly stole from his family, including his grandmother, and today, having recovered from the pathology, “I am still afraid of falling back” into the nightmare of gambling addiction. The minors who are most involved in gambling set betting app notifications on their mobile phones instead of an alarm clock. At 9 in the morning the phone vibrates to start playing endless games.
The SIIPa.Cfounded by Cesare Guerreschiis a recovery center for pathological gamblers supported by the municipality of Bolzano. Gabriele, 25 years old, says that it all started «more or less at 15 years old, when starting to go to bars and arcades, I was confronted with the, alas, famous slot machines. I started stealing here and there in the house, from my parents’ wallets, from relatives’ houses. If I was caught in the act, I lied shamelessly, making up excuses and stories to justify myself.” The situation worsened quickly: «Nervous, I had very strong mood swings and outbursts of anger. I had entered a vicious circle from which I could not escape. I fell into a serious depression, which led me to take psychotropic drugs and I began to drink excessively.”
The new frontier revealed by Sabrina Molinarofrom the Cnr, is impressive: «Many kids jump from gaming (video games) to gambling (gambling and betting) and end up in online trading (trading shares and cryptocurrencies). Even in this case they are very attractive sites.”
The stereotype of classic bar slot machines or poker among friends is overcome by online gambling. In video games well known among teenagers such as Fifa for football, or Fortnite, set in a post-apocalyptic world and Call of Duty, a war “shooter”, there are “Loot boxes”, virtual chests.
The regulatory vacuum on Loot boxes and gacha games
«The player pays to obtain randomly assigned rewards, such as bonuses or competitive advantages, without knowing in advance what he will receive. The mechanism is based on uncertainty: you spend money in the hope of obtaining a particularly desirable or rare reward”, he explains Giansanto Mosconi doctor and researcher.
Another magnet towards gambling are the influencers active on YouTube or the most followed Twitch, the main live streaming platform in the world, by Amazon, where very popular kids play poker online or open Loot boxes showing sensational winnings. The implicit message is: immediate, easy and fun profit.
The third piece is represented by the groups on Telegram that promise “the secret combination to win at slots” or infallible predictions on matches. In practice they are scams, which manage to dupe younger people.
Ornella Corazzaprofessor of clinical psychology and director ofAddiction Science Lab of the University of Trento, explains to Panorama that «numerous studies have highlighted a significant correlation between the frequent use of Loot Boxes and the onset of specific problems such as gaming disorder or greater use of gambling».
Belgium and the Netherlands have already banned Loot Boxes in games aimed at minors, but in Italy “regulation is missing” he highlights Ornella Corazza. “It is important to legislate on this matter, without wasting time.” In a study conducted in 25 countries on a sample of 1,788 parents, it turns out that only 17.2% declare they have never heard of the monetization mechanisms of video games, but almost one in two (45.6%) do not know what Loot boxes are. For online gambling, minors log in with accounts lent by their older sibling, cousins or even by some unsuspecting parent. Some virtual casino platforms do not ask for documents and the most digital kids use VPNs to disguise their location, identity and age.
In gambling, which in Italy generates a turnover of 160 billion, the so-called “gacha games” are now gaining ground. They are “video games especially for smartphones, in which a central part of the experience consists of paying to obtain random prizes through systems similar to Loot boxes”, he explains further Giansanto Mosconi. At first glance they just seem like adventure or action games. «The player spends money, or purchased credits to randomly “extract” characters, skills or upgrades that allow them to advance more quickly or perform better». The global gacha games market is $35 billion in 2025. Games like Genshin Impact: $2.5 billion in revenue, over 60 million monthly users; Honkai: Star Rail, 50 million downloads; RAID: Shadow Legends, over 100.
On the portal If this is a game, which helps those who want to get out of it, a boy describes a story in reverse: «At 16 I asked for help for my mother». After work she stopped at the slot machines. «Some evenings he came back very late, sometimes at eleven, then the worst news arrived: mum had taken leave saying she was sick, but in reality she was going to play. They discovered her and now she risks being fired.” The boy searches for information on the Internet, finding the courage to contact the addiction service closest to home. “Mom has started a journey, dad is learning that addiction is a disease,” he concludes. «I go to a family group where there are other kids like me. And finally I no longer feel alone.”
