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Problem Gambling Experts Support Online Gambling

Experts Say Online Gambling Has Better Safeguards

By Marsha Palmer
July 11, 2007

For more than a decade, online gambling has been a hot button issue on Capital Hill. The booming internet gambling industry is now receiving support from an unlikely source - problem gambling experts. Some of the world's leading experts on compulsive gambling are now speaking out in favor of having online gambling legalized in the United States.

The U.S. Government's battle with online gambling dates back more than a decade, to when Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) repeatedly tried and failed to pass a bill titled "The Internet Gaming Prohibition Act". After a decade of failures, Congressional Republicans emerged victorious in the fight to stamp out online gambling last year, after adding a prohibitive bill to the inside of a homeland security bill that increased security for various ports in the United States.

The new gambling law, known as the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act", or UIGEA, was signed into law by President Bush last fall. The law serves to provide a lawful barrier that prevents financial institutions from processing electronic payments to online casinos. Critics of the bill point out that most financial institutions had been doing this voluntarily since 2002, making the new legislation a waste of time and tax dollars.

Meanwhile, the World Trade Organization has ruled that this ban is in violation of U.S. trade agreements, and House Democrats have drafted counter legislation that would legalize and regulate online gambling for citizens of the United States. The latter movement has now gained a large amount of support from unlikely allies - experts in the field of problem and compulsive gambling.

A press release issued by CasinoCityTimes.com reported a number of leading experts speaking positively about the benefits of online gambling. One such expert was Keith Whyte, Executive Director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, who was quoted as saying, "Clearly gambling on the internet raises some difficult issues, but it provides theoretical opportunities for operators to deliver responsible gaming programs that meet or exceed current standards in the bricks-and-mortar gaming industry."

Andrew Poole mirrored these sentiments, and was reported as saying, "Across Europe and the rest of the world, experience has shown that regulated Internet gambling and the implementation of proven safeguards can ensure more responsible gambling operations and off-set increases in problematic gambling."

Poole is the Head of Online Services for GamCare, a U.K. based charitable organization committed to addressing the social impact of gambling. Poole and Whyte are not alone in this manner of thinking. A large number of industry experts have chimed in to agree with this theory, as well as other benefits of having regulated online gambling, such as consumer protection issues.

Among the leading reasons of why problem gambling experts support the idea of online gambling are the fact that the consumer can more easily make informed decisions and that they have access to their spending habits more readily available than they would if they were gambling in a physical casino.