#Kingston, March 1, 2019 – Jamaica – State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Alando Terrelonge, is imploring adolescents to refrain from participating in underage gambling, as this may negatively impact their education.
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“Your education is the best gift that you can give to yourselvesnot gambling…Your education is the one thing that will last for the rest ofyour life. So do not gamble with your education. If you do gamble, you aregambling with your education,” he said.
Jamaica talk: three hundred years of the English language in Jamaica By Frederic Gomes Cassidy. Another game is known as drop-pan from the method of play. One buys from a book of tickets (/tai shiin/ is the Chinese name by which this generally goes) numbered from 1 to 36, each ticket representing something — for example, a part of the body. So the question is, is gambling in Jamaica, legal or illegal? If it’s illegal why is all of this ‘open’ gambling being allowed? If legal why are we not making some serious foreign exchange from it? Bauxite, Sugar and Banana died or have been killed. Even our little piece of the sky’s, Air Jamaica, is on the chopping blocks.
The Minister was speaking at the awards ceremony for RISE LifeManagement Services’ adolescent gambling prevention all-island jingle competition,held on February 27 at the organisation’s downtown Kingston offices. He noted that gambling can be a gateway tosubstance abuse, including alcohol and drugs, delinquency in school as well asother antisocial behaviours.
Mr. Terrelonge also appealed tostakeholders in the betting and gaming industry to discourage children fromgambling.
“Don’t allow the young students to come into yourinstitutions and gamble away their lunch money… . Don’tallow our children to gamble their education away,” he urged.
He lauded RISE Life ManagementServices and its partners for staging the jinglecompetition, which seeks to create awareness about the dangers ofindulging in underage gambling.
The entity’s Executive Director, Sonita Abrahams Burrows, said thatsince 2017, 4,000 youth have been sensitisedabout the consequences of underage gambling.
“This year, we have increased our target to some 16,000 studentsacross Jamaica,” she noted.
Grade-five student of Holy Family Primary School in Kingston, Malique Brown copped first place for his jingle, walking away with acash prize of $50,000.
The duo of Jahiem Jackson and Ackeem Johnson fromGaynstead High School in Kingston received the second-place cash prize of$30,000, while grade-nine student of Ferncourt High School in St. Ann, VernandoBailey, received the third-place prize of $20,000. The jingles will beprofessionally produced for airplay.
Some $176,000 in cash prizes was awarded to shortlistedparticipants, as well as trophies and medals. The competition was open to school-basedyouth at the primary and secondary levels, who were asked to make submissionsunder the theme ‘Underage Gambling Will Lead to Disaster; Focus on Educationand Be Your Own Master’.
The annual initiative seeks to eliminate underage gambling bycreating greater awareness about the consequences among stakeholders. It isillegal for persons under the age of 18 to gamble.
RISE Life Management Services operates the only gambling-prevention,treatment research and responsible gaming programme in the Caribbean.
Contact: Rochelle Williams
Release: JIS
Header: State Minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Alando Terrelonge (second right), presents Holy Family Primary School student, Malique Brown, with the winner’s trophy in RISE Life Management Services’ adolescent gambling-prevention jingle competition. The awards ceremony was held on February 27 at the entity’s downtown Kingston offices. Sharing the moment are Vice President of Marketing, Communication and Sponsorship, Supreme Ventures Limited, Gail Abrahams (second left); and Executive Director of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC), Vitus Evans.
Insert: Grade-five student of Holy Family Primary School in Kingston, Malique Brown, performs his winning entry in the RISE Life Management Services’ adolescent gambling-prevention jingle competition, at the awards ceremony held on February 27 at the entity’s downtown Kingston offices. Malique reveived a cash prize of $50,000.
R. Fraser Photos
Recovering gamblers unite to help addicts
published: Sunday February 11, 2007
Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter
- Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
Children are not the only ones at risk of being sucked into the potentially poisonous habit of gambling.
Members of the support group, Gamblers Anonymous (GA), say once persons get involved in gambling they run the risk of being hooked and it may have serious implications for the personal, social and financial lives.
No study has ever been done in Jamaica to capture the extent of gambling in the population. However, studies in the United States suggest that approximately 30 per cent of the population gambles and five per cent of these persons are problem gamblers.
Problem gambling, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling in the United States, is any gambling behaviour that causes disruptionin any significant area of life: psychological, physical, social, or vocational.
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The essential features of problem gambling are increasing preoccupa-tion with gambling, a need to bet more money more frequently, restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop, and continuation of gambling behaviour despite mounting serious, negative consequences.
Steve, a middle-aged Kingston businessman, says gambling for him started as a regular Sunday evening activity with a friend. But when that friend migrated, Steve says he wanted to continue and searched for entertainment houses with gaming facilities in order to pass time. After years of draining his pocket and putting various areas of his life on the line, Steve made up his mind to quit.
'I recognised what I was doing. I was destroying myself and I sought help,' he says. He went overseas for treatment and later returned to Jamaica and joined GA. And even though he was the only one present at meetings for five years, he never gave up. Now he has gone over 12 years and almost two months without placing a bet.
Wagering
Steve may be the only member of GA to have abstained that long from gambling, but all the members have known what it is like to chase their fate by wagering. One man says: 'Gambling offers no winning. It is a lose-lose situation; today you may win $500,000 and tomorrow you lose $1.2 million.'
Ken, who works in the service industry, has learnt the harsh lessons of gambling.
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He says he started out playing the illegal street-side game of Crown and Anchor as a teenager and graduated to wagering on race horse boxes.
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'I gambled everything, everything - and I am now broke,' Ken says as he shares his testimony with persons who too have admitted to having a gambling problem.
'I lost everything ... to the point where I am now working with a borrowed vehicle. Right now I am working to pay back debts,' he adds.
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While the stories of gambling addicts are many, Richard Henry, co-ordinator of Rise Life Ministries' gambling prevention programme, stresses that it does not have to be like this.
'You have people who gamble and are OK But you have people who gamble and lose control and this is the sort of behaviour we try to prevent,' Henry says.
And for persons who have already been hooked, GA members say it is not the end of the road. The first step to recovery they say, must be with an admission that one has become powerless over gambling and that one's life has become unmanageable. Once that is done, they say, GA welcomes you with open arms; all that is required for membership is the desire to stop gambling.
Not their real names.
For information on joining GA call 877-7074; 470-7501.