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In South Korea, adolescent gambling has become a pressing public health and social welfare issue. More adolescents are now exposed to gambling through smartphones and social media than ever before. Schools have responded by offering prevention education, but we still know very little about whether such education works equally well for elementary, middle, and high school students, or whether boys and girls benefit from it differently. This study examines how gambling prevention education experience influences adolescent gambling behavior—defined as participation in any form of wagering involving money or valuables and tests whether school level and gender moderate these effects.
Methods
Data were drawn from the 2025 National Survey on Youth Gambling Behavior (National Approved Statistics No. 469001), a nationally representative cross-sectional survey covering students in grades 4 through 12 across South Korea. Independent variables included lifetime prevention education experience, education experience in 2025, perceived education effectiveness, and delivery (class-based or lecture-hall-based). Dependent variables included lifetime gambling experience, gambling persistence over the past six months, gambling frequency, and average monthly gambling expenditure. We used chi-square tests and t-tests to compare groups, ANOVA to test differences across school levels, and logistic and multiple regression to identify predictors. We also tested whether the effect of education varied by gender through interaction terms. Survey weights were applied throughout, controlling for grade level and monthly allowance.
Results
The lifetime gambling prevalence rate was 4.0%, and among those with gambling experience, 19.4% reported continued gambling over the past six months. Male students showed significantly higher gambling frequency and expenditure than female students (p < .001), accounting for roughly 70% of all gambling-experienced respondents. Gambling experience rates rose significantly with school level (p < .05), while perceived education effectiveness was highest among elementary students (84.7%) and lowest among high school students (59.2%). In logistic regression, being female reduced gambling risk by 76% (OR = 0.24, p < .001), and prevention education significantly mitigated gambling persistence. Subgroup analyses showed that prevention education effectively blocked gambling entry at the elementary level. In contrast, interactive class-based education outperformed lecture-hall formats among high school students (p < .01). A significant gender-by-delivery-format interaction (p < .05) indicated that class-based education was particularly effective for high-risk male students.
Conclusions and Implications
Our findings highlight three areas: early childhood intervention, educational delivery format, and gender-specific screening. First, elementary students were the most receptive to education (84.7%), and gambling typically began around fifth grade. Upper elementary school is therefore the critical period for preventive intervention. Second, high school students rated education as far less effective (59.2%), which means one-directional lectures should give way to participatory, class-based formats that engage students actively. Third, boys gambled more often and spent more money than girls, and this gap persisted even after education. Which means that boys may require additional attention in screening and follow-up. Given that South Korea shares with other Asia-Pacific countries a rapid expansion of online gambling access among young people, these findings may be relevant to similar prevention efforts in the region.