Maryland Looks At Introducing Gambling Education In High School

The gambling industry across the world is growing at a rapid pace and one of the main reasons is due to the popularity of online gambling. While the gambling industry flourishes, it has also caused concern amongst anti-gambling groups who are worried about the growing increase in gambling addicts.

Multiple countries including the UK and Australia have confirmed that gambling addiction is no longer a problem that plagues adults alone but has also started to affect the younger generation.

This is why Maryland Senator Bryan Simonaire has come out with a new bill SB0243. This bill calls on the State Department of Education to come out with a curriculum that will require all local schools to educate the students on the dangers of gambling.

If SB0243 gets the required approval, all high schools in Maryland will have to train their teachers on the new gambling curriculum and then roll it out. The Senator has currently made it an option for local schools to adopt an existing gambling curriculum or decide to develop a new one.

Senator Simonaire referred to a number of studies which pointed out that adolescents are facing issues with problem gambling. Simonaire pointed out that Maryland receives significant revenues in the form of gaming taxes from its gambling industry. He is pushing for some of these funds to be diverted to social causes such as educating children and protecting them from the dangers of gambling.

Senator Confident Bill Will Be Approved

This is not the first time that Senator Simonaire has introduced such a bill. He introduced a similar bill in 2020 but it did not get the necessary approval it required from House of Delegates. The main reason for this was because the legislative session was closed early in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Simonaire has come out with a similar bill in 2021 and is confident that it will get the approval it requires in this legislative session. However, the Senator Cheryl Kagan who opposed the bill in 2020 says that she will not be voting for the bill this year as well.

Senator Kagan says that the general consensus in Maryland is that the state should not impose mandatory curriculums on high schools. It should be up to the Local Boards of Education to make the decision as to what curriculum is best suited to their students.