Danish high school students bypass age limits to gamble, school leaders demand ad bans

A 19-year-old student at Aalborg Business College began gambling at age 15 by using friends’ accounts and foreign sites to circumvent Denmark’s 18+ age restriction, Danish broadcaster DR reports. Now school administrators are calling for stricter regulations, including a ban on gambling firms’ “welcome bonuses” and advertisements targeting young people.

Wadie Bawadi told DR he first gambled at 15 by transferring money to older friends or using his parents’ accounts. By 18, he had exploited welcome bonuses—cash incentives for new players—on every legal site available. “As soon as you start, you want to keep going,” he said. “My advice is to never begin.”

A 2026 survey by Aalborg Municipality found 27 percent of high school students had gambled in the past year. Bawadi, who has lost thousands of kroner, admitted he only plans to quit “when I win big one time.”

School vice principals described gambling’s divisive impact on campuses. At Aalborg Business College’s Thurøgade location, Lene Østerbæk said boys have pressured girls to create accounts to claim bonuses, with some girls registering for ROFUS (Denmark’s voluntary self-exclusion gambling registry) to avoid harassment. “It shows how massive this problem is,” she said.

Peder Overgaard Pedersen, vice principal at the school’s Saxogade campus, linked gambling addiction to “fatal consequences” among students and called for ad bans. The school has blocked gambling sites on its network and hosted lectures by the Center for Ludomani (Gambling Addiction Center).

Morten Rønde, chair of Spillebranchen (the Danish online gambling trade association), acknowledged concerns but argued that welcome bonuses on licensed sites help steer players away from unregulated markets. Illegal operators, he said, “have Danish-language sites and apps, no age checks, and even reward problematic behavior.” Licensed firms, by contrast, monitor player patterns to flag potential addiction.