What Does the Influx of Youths in Ghana’s Gambling Industry Mean?

Ghana is a West African country with a total population of over 31M citizens as of 2020. The youths in this country under the age of 25 years is 57% of the total population. In terms of the economy, this means that the rate of youth dependency is very high.

The aforementioned statistics are very important as we discuss the effects caused by huge numbers of youths being actively involved in betting. Ghana is one of the countries with less or no gambling restrictions. In some countries, the legal age for gambling is 18 years and above. The lack of government restriction in the country’s gambling sector, therefore, leaves the welfare of the gambling citizenry at the mercy of the betting operators.

What are the driving causes of gambling among youths?

Ghana as most of the developing nations in the African continent has relatively higher rates of unemployment and poverty. We all dream of becoming independent as soon as possible. Most of the youths are unfortunately exposed to tough life at the early stages of life trying to earn a living.

Youths have resorted to gambling as the only source of income. The nightmare of the gambling industry-treating gambling as a job- is not an option but the only option Ghanaian desperate youths have. Naturally, gambling should be a form of entertainment. When viewed differently, gambling can cause more harm than good. In the bid to try and avoid being idle, youths get involved in gambling activities. In the long run, gambling becomes the only thing they know and most end up getting addicted and unproductive.

Poor education systems cause most of the youths to end up in the streets without proper education to land them jobs. The current systems advocating for white color jobs have left hundreds of thousand youth in the country unabsorbed into formal employment. Gambling again is the only way for these unemployed youths hoping for brighter days ahead have out of poverty. Sportsbooks and bookmakers have a way of advertising their business in that everyone falls into the trap of believing that all their problems are solved.

Now than ever before, awesome technologies have penetrated the country. Youths have easy access to cheap internet and smartphones. This has enabled most of the youths to engage in all manner of activities, both useful and harmful. Gambling for the wrong reasons sooner than later becomes pathological which has very bad endings.

Echoing a very familiar saying, “the youths are the future” I can confidently say that the words are true. This depends highly on the kind of youths we are raising. Is our future safe in the hands of gambling youths? Let me guess, your answer is no, and so is mine. Let us learn about the implications of gambling youths to the country’s economy.

What are the implications of a gambling youth nation?

Increased prevalence of pathological gambling. With large numbers of youths engaging in unrestricted gambling, the country risks having a huge problem in the future battling pathological gambling. For instance, if a youth starts gambling at the age of 18 years without a family, a proper education, or a stable source of income, this means that gambling is all they have. In this event, the young gambler puts all their efforts into gamblingwhile hoping to earn a decent livelihood. If the latter does not happen which is the case most of the time, the outcome is that the punter gets depressed, and might even commit suicide. This effect is replicated throughout the country to thousands of gambling youths.

Exacerbated poverty.

Ghana has high poverty rates already. If the youths are left to throwaway their promising future to gambling and possible problem gambling, the outcome is that poverty in the country will keep getting worse.

Conclusively, gambling renders the youths, who should be the most productive segment of a population less productive. Most of the youths have dropped out of colleges and schools because they gambled their tuition fee. Others have committed suicide out of frustrations. Gambling has very many unseen dangers and leaving the youth at the mercy of the operators, who are out here to make money, is like leaving your sheep in the hands of the wolves. Sure gambling could earn a country some revenue, but in the long run, the harm is more than the good.

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