Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Ger­ard Bap­tiste is not par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned that re­mov­ing re­stric­tions on re­mote gam­bling will lead to a surge in gam­bling ad­dic­tion among young peo­ple.

Bap­tiste said he was await­ing the fi­nal leg­is­la­tion be­fore mak­ing a de­fin­i­tive as­sess­ment. How­ev­er, he said the fo­cus should be less on the le­gal gam­bling age and more on ad­dress­ing why peo­ple turn to po­ten­tial­ly harm­ful be­hav­iours.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Bap­tiste said gam­bling was al­ready read­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble in sev­er­al forms, in­clud­ing lot­tery out­lets and gam­ing ma­chines.

“Any coun­try must have ba­sic laws, whether it’s 17, 18, 21, 25, what­ev­er it is.”

How­ev­er, he said rais­ing the le­gal age alone would not ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing is­sues that could lead to prob­lem­at­ic gam­bling.

Bap­tiste said greater em­pha­sis should be placed on ed­u­ca­tion, ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion and treat­ment.

“What I’m con­cerned about is that we are not pro­vid­ing enough in­for­ma­tion.”

He said young peo­ple deal­ing with trau­ma, peer pres­sure or oth­er chal­lenges need­ed health­i­er ways to cope.

“What are the in­ter­ven­tions that we’re do­ing as a so­ci­ety to pre­vent me from even us­ing that as an op­tion?”

Bap­tiste said gam­bling, like al­co­hol and cig­a­rettes, would re­main ac­ces­si­ble re­gard­less of the le­gal age. He was al­so not par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the po­ten­tial im­pact of the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­move re­stric­tions on re­mote gam­bling, rea­son­ing that on­line gam­bling gen­er­al­ly re­quires a cred­it card or an­oth­er form of elec­tron­ic pay­ment.

“To gam­ble, you need to have mon­ey,” he said.

Bap­tiste said this could lim­it ac­cess for vul­ner­a­ble young peo­ple who lacked in­de­pen­dent fi­nan­cial re­sources.

“The young peo­ple that are vul­ner­a­ble don’t have ac­cess to the mon­ey to be able to go on­line to do it.”

In­stead, he said, he was more con­cerned about young peo­ple’s ac­cess to sub­stances such as al­co­hol, cig­a­rettes and cannabis.

His com­ments come as the Gov­ern­ment moves to open re­mote gam­bling be­tween peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go and over­seas.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo pi­lot­ed a res­o­lu­tion to ap­prove the Gam­bling (Gam­ing and Bet­ting) (Re­mote Gam­bling) Or­der 2026 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Wednes­day.

Tan­coo said the mea­sure had sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue-rais­ing po­ten­tial and would pro­vide a le­gal frame­work for peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go to en­gage in re­mote gam­bling.

Un­der the ex­ist­ing law, any­one op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go who of­fered re­mote gam­bling to some­one in an­oth­er coun­try could face a fine of be­tween $5 mil­lion and $10 mil­lion and im­pris­on­ment for be­tween sev­en and 10 years, he said.

The Or­der was passed with unan­i­mous sup­port from Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the PNM sup­port­ed the leg­is­la­tion be­cause it gave ef­fect to a pro­vi­sion in leg­is­la­tion passed by the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2021.

“We sup­port­ed the Or­der be­cause it sought to bring in­to ef­fect a pro­vi­sion in a Bill which the PNM Gov­ern­ment passed in 2021.”

Bap­tiste said the wider con­ver­sa­tion should ex­tend be­yond leg­is­la­tion. So­ci­ety, he said, need­ed to pro­vide peo­ple with the in­for­ma­tion, sup­port sys­tems and in­ter­ven­tions to pre­vent gam­bling or sub­stance use from be­com­ing a mal­adap­tive re­sponse to per­son­al chal­lenges.