Growing up in La Cañada, I witnessed firsthand how the digital world shaped us as it evolved with us. As a high school freshman, I would never have expected to see kids gambling. I was always taught that gambling is something you do when you are much older in Vegas. But during lunch one day, I saw a group of boys huddling around, cheering every couple of minutes. I was curious and walked over to find them all huddled around a phone playing this little game where you have to guess where the mine is and try to click the boxes where it isn’t. Then I saw this kid drop $200 into one game, and that was when I realized this wasn’t a game, but it was gambling. He was on a hot streak,  so he decided to go all in. He lost it all. 

This is the exact reason I decided to start G.U.I.D.E., to research the effects of gambling on teenagers and to help prevent situations like this, where kids put real money into a game, thinking they can win it all. Our mission is to help people understand the dangers of gambling, educate them with verified research, and offer them insight to guide them in the right direction.