Editorial.

Amongst the British Government's plans for the future regulation of gambling is the proposal to continue to allow children to play low stake/low prize gaming machines. No other country permits juvenile gaming machine playing, and the 2001 Gambling Review Report bowed to industry pressure to allow it to continue. Evidence from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey and elsewhere suggests that machine gambling is one of the more addictive forms of gambling, and that children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to problem machine gambling. Theories of child development and of habit formation would predict that playing gaming machines would be dangerous for young people. Given the level of funding that will be available for gambling research, the Government's recommendation that research sould be carried out within five years on the harm or lack of it, caused by juvenile gaming machine playing is unrealistic. By proposing to perpetuate the anomaly of juvenile machine gambling, the British government is acting irresponsibly by failing to protect young people and their families from a practice which all existing evidence leads us to believe is likely to be hazardous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]