It seems long ago that Dennis Lundy, Dion Lee and two gambling scandals thrust Northwestern into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

The football and basketball point-shaving scandals of the 1990s now simply represent a chapter in NU history, but gambling today is as much a part of NU as it was before. Now, though, the most popular method involves students using their credit cards to play poker and wager on sporting events online.

Who needs casinos, sports books and poker nights when you can log on to any number of Web sites, legal and illegal, and place $100 bets with a click of your mouse?

This is not a good thing. According to an article in USA Today, a new study shows that those who gamble on the Internet are more likely to be problem gamblers and thus at greater risk for health and emotional difficulties.

So how do NU students react? They gamble online, and they do it often.

One junior admits to playing so much poker online, and not always successfully, that his checking account was overdrawn twice. Fortunately, his mother covered the losses. His habit is not so time-consuming as that of his friend, who he claims once spent 60 hours one week raising and bluffing, and sometimes gambles until 6 a.m.

To think these students still find time to squeeze classes into their busy schedules.

The best thing for students about gambling on sports events online is that when they lose all their bets, they don’t have to worry about their bookie breaking their kneecaps.

On the other hand, as students will tell you, online gambling still has its own hazards.

One junior decided to stop betting on college and professional basketball games because the “adrenaline rush” was outweighed by the fact that gambling was “eating my life away.”

Another student admits to having constantly taken breaks from studying at the library to check the scores of games on which he placed bets.

It’s hard for an NU student to kick the addiction when, as one gambler put it, “the person next door plays (online poker) all the time.”

NU administrators should realize that gambling is a problem for students. Gambling here might not be any worse than at a typical university, but neither is drinking. The consequences can sometimes be just as dangerous.

Adding a mandatory Responsibilities session during New Student Week and a gambling crisis hotline would increase student awareness and provide support for the addicted – before they gamble away their tuition money.

And what can students do? They can begin by acknowledging that they have gone to the Welsh-Ryan Arena for the wrong reasons if they pout when Jitim Young misses a meaningless three-pointer with 20 seconds left and the Cats down by 12.

Besides, there have to be more exhilarating things to do than sit idly at the computer, wait for scores to change and push the refresh button every five minutes. I should know. I used to do it, too.