There are many young players who take part vigorously in online poker, since most of these online poker sites do not verify the age of a player. It is indeed illegal to allow underage participants to play poker, since it is believed that online poker games that involve wagering activities spoil minds of young participants, especially if the participants are teenage kids. Following are the reasons why young players must be prohibited.

Basic Money skills: Usually, young players may not be able to handle money carefully. Inability to manage money, may cause them lose more money while taking part in the game.

Account funding: In order to play, these young participants try to fund their account in some way or the other. Participants’ credentials should be checked to prevent underage gambling activities.

The Obsession of playing: These online poker games create an addiction to gambling in minds of young players. This is the reason why most of the young participants get diverted from their regular activities like studies or job.

Compulsive gambling issue: In some cases, allowing young participants to play online poker games leads to a compulsive gambling issue. As a result, young participants try illicit activities to find their funding sources.

Giving money away: Due to the addiction towards wagering, young players make use of their pocket money and allowances, to take part in the game, which is obviously an unhealthy practice.

Enforcement of local laws not applied: Due to urge of playing poker games, these young players fail to enforce local laws related to underage gambling.

Nevertheless, the other side of the coin must also be dealt with. Following are the positive aspects that support participation of young players in online poker games.

The hypocritical argument: Though the law considers such online wagering activities as illegal, we must keep in mind that there are certain ‘regulated’ gambling sites. This obviously means that wagering is permissible under a specific “regulated” or rather “restricted” pattern.

Youth gambling preventative measures: Some good online poker sites have already taken appropriate measures to disallow and discard underage members, preventing them from taking part in gambling activities.

Speech freedom: However, overdoing the regulations and preventive measures may create an impression on minds of young players that the establishment is trying to interfere in their freedom by controlling the usage of money spent by players on poker and entertainment. Players should not be restricted totally; they should be left free to some extent.

Regulation is the grand savior: Hence, the best solution for ‘Speech freedom’ along with ‘Youth gambling preventative measures’ is creating ‘Universal’ laws and regulations for such online gambling activities. This will allow young players to take part in the game and still it will remain to be regulated.

Additionally, when it is made universal, government can get benefited by means of tax. So, it is not necessary to prohibit young players from playing online poker games. Instead, it can be regulated!