His Teen Son Won $1,500, But He Confiscated All Of The Winnings To Make A Point About The Risks Of Gambling
This man has a 17-year-old son, and recently, his son decided to gamble online and won a nice chunk of change. In fact, his son won a whopping $1,500.
Apparently, the teen got into online gambling after watching some other gambling streams on the internet.
“And it seemed like my son wanted to experience the thrill himself,” he said.
Now, his son obviously isn’t of legal age to be gambling, so he realizes that his son must have falsely indicated that he was over 18 to play. However, he wasn’t exactly angry about that. He was more upset that his son decided to gamble in the first place.
He only found out about the $1,500 win after his son received a congratulatory email, too, meaning that his son didn’t exactly come clean about the gambling.
So, he was pretty upset and thought it was only right that he “step in” as a parent. In other words, he decided to confiscate all of the winnings.
“Not primarily because my son lied about his age, but because I wanted to underscore the risk and potential addiction associated with gambling,” he clarified.
“I felt this could be a slippery slope for a teenager, especially given how easy it was for him to win this time.”
Well, once his wife learned that he’d confiscated the funds, she actually accused him of overreacting. She believed that he should have just spoken to their son about responsible and appropriate behavior instead of just taking away all of the winnings.
goodluz – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“She says this because he did stop gambling and self-excluded on his own volition,” he explained.
On top of that, his son is obviously really upset about losing the money since he felt like he’d won it “fair and square,” aside from being underage.
“And my son’s been pretty cold to me since,” he vented.
That’s why he’s now begun second-guessing himself, and he can’t help but wonder if confiscating his son’s prize money to make a point about gambling risks was really an overreaction or not.
Do you think he did the right thing by taking the money away? Or do you think his wife was right about the importance of talking to their son in an honest conversation? How would you handle this situation in his shoes?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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