Will teens know when to fold in the popular poker craze?

For most of the kids anteing up for red-hot poker games these days, the pastime will probably amount to nothing more than a little innocent fun with their friends. But experts on problem gambling are keeping a wary eye on the fast-moving fad because statistics have shown that in the past boys and girls who gambled before age 20 were three times as likely to become compulsive gamblers as those who didn't.

The card game - and the betting that generally accompanies it - took the country by storm last year after ESPN began airing a series that features high-stakes poker games among professionals. The craze has been fueled by other television poker shows, a $1.8 billion Internet poker industry, and the proliferation of legal gambling, which has become engrained in US culture over the past two decades.

As Americans of all ages rush to try their luck at Texas Hold 'Em, parents of teens often don't seem overly worried when their kids wager on the outcome.

Instead, many feel that a poker gameamong friends in the family living room is a benign alternative to drinking, using drugs, or engaging in other types of risky adolescent behavior.

In Rowley, Mass., for instance, Gary Machiros wasn't concerned when his 12- and 14-year-old sons switched from collecting hockey cards to collecting straights and flushes after watching ESPN's "World Series of Poker" last year. After all, he played poker for $15 pots when he was 16, and he liked seeing poker bring out his boys' competitive instincts. So rather than raise objections, he jumped into the game with them.

"As long as they're not doing a lot of it, it's just one more thing they're doing," Mr. Machiros says. "You can compare it to a video game, although maybe it's a little better because there's some interaction" with friends.

Such an attitude is fairly typical in the United States, where 80 percent of adults say they've bet money at least once in the past year, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling.

But whether youngsters enthralled by poker are learning to play responsibly or are taking a big risk with a seductive game is a point on which some parents and researchers disagree.

"Youth gambling may very well be an indicator of a lot of other risky behaviors to come," says Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

Mr. Whyte hypothesizes, based on youth gambling data, that children who begin gambling in middle school might become inclined to seek bigger thrills with each passing year through higher stakes gambling, underage sex, illicit drug use, or other high-risk activities.

Other research confirms a correlation among risky behaviors, but youthful gambling isn't necessarily the root culprit. "It's hard to make the case for a causal relationship [between youth gambling and other risky behaviors]," says Dan Romer, research director at the Adolescent Risk Communication Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. "We know the vices go together; people who do one will do another."

But whether gambling triggers other types of risk-taking, or if it simply attracts those already inclined to be risk-takers, is not fully understood, according to Mr. Romer.

For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, federal and state laws tightly restricted gambling. Today's youthful generation has had lifelong exposure through state-advertised lotteries, poker shows on television, and Internet gambling.

This dramatic shift over just a few years has left researchers grappling with a previously unasked question: What happens to children who grow up gambling in a society where gambling is almost ubiquitous?

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