Why SUM(`column`) returns a string instead of an integer?

I'm using Laravel and have a query that selects using DB::raw() SUM() of a column:

DB::raw("SUM(points) as game_points")

I have installed mysqldn and AFAIK Laravel uses PDO.

But game_points is a string, no matter what type of the column is. (It's an integer column)

Also if I do:

DB::raw("COUNT(id) as foo_bar")

foo_bar is returned as an integer.