Gambling News - July 2005 Edition

"The Odds are Good that Online Gambling Will Continue to Thrive - But at What Price?"

There is huge concern about whether this online gambling is legal, especially when it's a form of gambling that's accessible to adolescents.

According to the research firm, River City Group, Internet poker alone is already a two billion dollar a year industry and it is attracting a million players each month. Without a doubt, online poker is here to stay and it will stay quite successfully. ComScore Media Matrix, which measures all U.S. Internet users at home, work and college locations, reports that, out of a total audience of 165 million, there were more than 29 million unique visitors to online gambling sites in just April.

Another recent survey from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, says that card playing for money is on the rise, most notably in the 14 to 22 year age group. The Center’s figures show that in 2004, 11.4 percent of school-age male youth reported betting on cards at least once a week, up from 6.2 percent in 2003. It added that 11.4 percent of these weekly card players were likely to participate in online gambling. Also, 43.2 percent of the players who played cards for money on a weekly basis were under the age of eighteen.

The most popular Internet poker sites, according to one source, include PacificPoker.com and PartyPoker.com, both based in Gibraltar, Empire Poker and PokerRoom, both based in Canada, and Poker World Online Cardroom, based in Jamaica.

It is hard to look at the figures and not be impressed, in spite of the many negative aspects associated with the proliferation of online gambling. The legal questions alone are enough to make one stop and think. There is much debate going on about whether online gambling is legal or not, if and how existing gambling laws can affect Internet gambling, how enforceable these laws actually are, especially overseas, and whether it is the job of the individual states or the federal government to determine the legality of online gambling.

Then there are all the questions regarding the social impact of online gambling. “There is great concern about whether this is legal, especially when it’s a form of gambling that is so highly accessible to adolescents,” says Daniel Romer, research director of Annenberg’s Adolescent Risk Communications Institute. Romer points out that, while casinos are off limits to people under the age of 21, and lottery tickets are sold only to those over 18 years of age, online gambling is accessible to anyone with a computer and Internet connection. Dan Hunter, a Wharton legal professor, notes that “it’s big business, widely distributed and badly regulated”.

The U.S. policy on Internet gambling has simply been to consider it illegal and not consider the possibility of legalizing and regulating the industry. U.S. law enforcement targets major site operators and punishes them with stiff penalties, hoping to make examples out of them. But individual bettors are ignored. It’s difficult to enforce these policies overseas, where the majority of online gambling companies are based and where online gambling is legal.

Executive director for the National Council on Problem Gambling, Keith Whyte, points out that legality and enforcement are two different things. “You can make online gambling illegal, but if you can’t enforce the law, it doesn’t matter,” he says. Whyte also points out that the biggest fear is that Internet gambling will create a new generation of problem gamblers.

By contrast, the United Kingdom, has decided to legalize online gambling so that it can regulate the industry and protect underage players. “In the U.K., the theory is to regulate to prevent underage players,” says Romer.