“Parents of a child who was in intermediate, so that would be around 11 to 12 years old, were beside themselves because he would sleep at school. He wasn’t engaging in the family and he was completely disconnected,” she said.
The boy had been using his mother’s credit card to fuel his online gambling habits.
“We found out that he had clocked up on his mother’s credit card over $16,000 because he was spending it on online gambling and he was up all night gambling,” she said.
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Ah-Honi said thousands of young people and their parents used Mapu Maia services but believed this was only the tip of the iceberg, because many people were too embarrassed to speak about the issue.
The service is designed…
