On Friday, December 12, Peer Leaders (along with Mr. Corvo’s and Ms. Clifford’s seventh period classes) attended an assembly on the negative impact online gambling can have on one’s life. Guest speaker Daniel Trolaro, problem gambling prevention specialist at the Council on Compulsive Gambling of NJ, opened up to the Hawthorne High School students about his life as an addicted gambler. He told some surprising statistics, such as approximately 3% of all Americans are considered addicted gamblers, which is roughly six million adults. It was important for our speaker to reach out to high school students, because just as his story went, online gambling addiction commonly starts as young teens, when they are exposed to lottery tickets, fantasy football games, and March Madness brackets. Although all are on a much smaller scale, all can easily spark the addiction.
The students were moved emotionally by how much the speaker revealed about his addiction, and how it impacted his personal life. Trolaro put gambling over his wife, family and job. He kept the audience very involved and connected, constantly comparing statistics on how common online gambling is, how almost impossible it is to detect, and how overlooked it is compared to other addictions.
The students overall were very interested and moved by how extreme online gambling addiction is. Senior Peer Leader Jesse Dorfman said, “The presentation was very informative and strongly impacted my views on online gambling.” Everyone seemed to love the intimate assembly, keeping all involved. Everyone felt very comfortable opening up and asking questions because of Trolaro’s openness to the crowd.
