Some high school students in Atlantic Canada are getting a lesson on the dangers of gambling addiction from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation.

'We want you to play the lottery, but do so in a healthy way.'— Robert Bourgeois, Atlantic Lottery Corporation

The lesson is in the form of a dramatic play touring schools around the region, a performance paid for by the lottery corporation.

The play was presented on Friday at Charlottetown's Colonel Gray High School.

"I guess our message to Atlantic Canadians is that we want you to play our games of chance if you are of age of majority," Robert Bourgeois of Atlantic Lotto said.

"We want you to play the lottery, but do so in a healthy way."

The play tells the story of a young university student who becomes addicted to online gambling. Other characters play poker and dabble with online gambling as well, but unlike their troubled friend, they know when to quit.

Some students in the audience admitted they've already started gambling, playing poker with friends or buying lottery tickets.

School officials say the play has a good message that they want students to hear, and most them probably weren't aware that Atlantic Lotto sponsored the show.

"I didn't really promote that with the students, so they didn't really know who sponsored it," school counsellor Daphne Campbell said.

"There was just sort of a one-sentence sponsorship. The students were more interested in seeing young people on the stage."

Campbell said the message of the play is important, because it is difficult to know just how big a problem gambling is with young people.