Published on September 19th, 2007 6:37 pm EST
A Gambling Commission Study released in the UK today found that the Internet and other new forms of gambling had not led to an increase in the amount of people that gamble. In fact, the total number of people that gamble in the UK dropped to 68% from 72% in 1999.
The chairman of the Commission, Peter Dean, found that 99% of adults who gambled in the UK did so harmlessly, and that 1% of all gamblers could be classified as "problem gamblers."
When the Commission initiated the report, they had expected to find that the number of gamblers and the amount of problem gambling had both increased due to the emergence of online gambling. The Commission stated that even when they included online gambling in their report, they still found no significant increase in the total number of "problem gamblers."
You read articles like this and wonder how politicians justify imposing major restrictions on online gambling, when a person could easily sell their house, fly to Vegas and lose all of their money in a day. In the end, it boils down to money and tax revenues. One can only hope that one day, we have people in power that will choose to regulate online gambling, instead of trying to prohibit it.
If you are going to try and shut down online gambling because you are "worried about people becoming addicted to gambling", then shouldn't you shut down brick and mortar casinos too? They never would and there is one reason for that: tax revenue.
--
Filed Under: Other Poker News
A Gambling Commission Study released in the UK today found that the Internet and other new forms of gambling had not led to an increase in the amount of people that gamble. In fact, the total number of people that gamble in the UK dropped to 68% from 72% in 1999. The chairman of the Commission, Peter Dean, found that 99% of adults who gambled in the UK did so harmlessly, and that 1% of all gamblers could be classified as "problem gamblers."
When the Commission initiated the report, they had expected to find that the number of gamblers and the amount of problem gambling had both increased due to the emergence of online gambling. The Commission stated that even when they included online gambling in their report, they still found no significant increase in the total number of "problem gamblers."
You read articles like this and wonder how politicians justify imposing major restrictions on online gambling, when a person could easily sell their house, fly to Vegas and lose all of their money in a day. In the end, it boils down to money and tax revenues. One can only hope that one day, we have people in power that will choose to regulate online gambling, instead of trying to prohibit it.
If you are going to try and shut down online gambling because you are "worried about people becoming addicted to gambling", then shouldn't you shut down brick and mortar casinos too? They never would and there is one reason for that: tax revenue.
--
Filed Under: Other Poker News
