Dan Kline loves gambling, but he would never play a slot machine.
"Slots is like throwing away your money," the Wharton senior said. "It's like saying, 'Here you go. Have my money.' I think people would just as soon throw their money out the window."
As Philadelphia officials contemplate locations for two new slots-only casinos, there is concern about the effects the establishments will have on the community.
Although the Philadelphia Gaming Advisory Taskforce has examined the casinos' potential social impact, there was not much information on students, said Howard Moseley, the Taskforce's social-impact committee coordinator.
In its interim report, released last August, the committee primarily addressed concerns about crime and a lack of treatment options for people with gambling problems.
For Kline, who is president of the Penn Poker Club, the arrival of slot machines will have little effect on his gambling habits. From his point of view, slots are entirely different from poker -- which he considers to be a game of skill, as opposed to a game of chance.
According to a study by the University's Annenberg Public Policy Center, he is not alone.
In 2004, the National Annenberg Risk Survey of Youth found that male students 14 to 22 years old are increasingly engaging in weekly gambling, mostly in the form of card games like poker. That year, 11.4 percent of the male students said they bet on cards at least once a week, up from 6.2 percent in 2003.
Figuring out the true popularity of gambling is "very complicated," said Dan Romer, director of research at the Institute for Adolescent Risk Communication at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
When people are initially asked if they have ever gambled, "the number we get from that is always lower when we probe people for the specific kinds," he said.
Although the study found that most students are not playing slot machines, Romer said the prevalence of card-betting among youth poses a risk for increased gambling problems in the future.
"The concern we have is that the earlier they start, the more likely they are to develop a problem because adolescents are more likely to get addicted than adults," he said.
Also, Romer noted, males at this age are particularly more likely than females to engage in risky behaviors like gambling.
Nationally, studies indicate that about 1 percent of Americans are "problem gamblers," typically identified as people whose gambling habits interfere with everyday life.
"In Pennsylvania, we feel those numbers are higher," said Jim Pappas, who directs the Philadelphia-based Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania.
When the Powerball lottery came to Philadelphia in the 1990s, Pappas noticed a significant increase in people seeking help from his organization. That leads him to believe that the arrival of slots in the city will lead to a spike in helpline activity as well.
"I can only use history as a guide," he said.
But for students like Kline, slot machines are not so appealing. If the casinos installed poker tables, though, it would be a different story.
"I think you'd have a lot of people that would stop going to Atlantic City," he said. "So I think it would be very successful."
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