Online gambling - don't bet on it

[Louis Cypher]

www.ucfnews.com/news

By Mike Riegel
Published: Monday, February 16, 2004


Lately, stories about college students abusing the Internet have had something to do with pirating movies and music. But the latest digital craze to hit campuses isn't affecting musicians and movie studios, it's ruining students' credit ratings and demolishing their bank accounts.

Internet gambling, long a thorn in the side of the Justice Department, is a problem that is gaining momentum at U.S. universities. It's fueled by a combination of easy access to online casinos and credit card companies that are more than willing to let 18- and 19-year-olds dig deep into debt before they understand the complexities of compounded interest.

Attracted by flashy pop-up ads, free starter bets and the good old-fashioned thrill of risk, thousands of students log in every day to some 1,800 offshore gaming sites that skirt U.S. gambling laws.

The Council on Compulsive Gambling of Florida has seen desperate calls related to Internet gambling addiction rise 1,000 percent this year, and many of those new calls are from college students, said Kevin O'Neill, the council's deputy director.

"It's remarkable that not a single college has a structured program to address gambling in the way that they handle drug and alcohol addictions," he added.

According to the California Council on Problem Gambling, addicted bettors between the ages of 18 and 25 face an average annual individual loss of $30,000, much of which winds up as credit card debt.

"Gambling addiction is four to five times more common among youth and college students than among the adult population," said Christine Reilly, executive director of the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling at Harvard Medical School's Division on Addiction.

Reilly said few studies have been done to methodically document the pervasiveness of college gambling, and its Internet variants are just beginning to gain attention. "But clearly the majority of Internet gamblers are college kids, and it's a growing problem," she said.

So, what can be done?

Laws against gambling are already in effect, but the Internet's lack of borders and the casinos' offshore legal status make them practically impossible to enforce. Meanwhile, credit card companies - ever eager to make friends with college students - may soon feel the pinch.

Republican Congressman James Leach of Iowa has sponsored the Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Bill, which would make it illegal to use credit cards and other bank instruments for online gambling. Predictably, opposition from financial institutions and Web-based gaming companies is strong, and insiders say the bill doesn't have much of a chance.

It doesn't seem like Internet gambling is going away anytime soon. Even with the potential for anti-gambling laws on the horizon, the industry is going full speed ahead.

A December 2002 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office stated that future growth in the online gaming industry will occur mainly outside the United States. Although Americans now account for half of industry revenues, the GAO predicted that by 2006, U.S. residents will account for more than $4 billion worth of online wagering.

"People love to gamble," Ryan Eberle, 22, said. "It's not about winning; it's about playing."

No matter where online gamblers are located, the industry is ready to serve them. At this point, the industry is working toward providing more variety. The old favorites - sports betting and casino games - still dominate the Web, but in the future, there will be more quirky opportunities that could draw in new gamblers.

With a rise in online gambling comes a greater danger of addiction, according to Nancy Petry, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut's Center for Gambling Research and Treatment.

In a recent study, Petry found that Internet gamblers were more likely to have a serious gambling problem than other gamblers. In her research, she warned that the Internet's explosive growth likely will lead to more online gambling opportunities.

When this happens, she said, health and emotional difficulties that come with gambling disorders are likely to follow. Such problems include substance abuse, circulatory disease, depression and risky sexual behaviors. As the report stated, "The availability of Internet gambling may draw individuals who seek out isolated and anonymous contexts for their gambling behaviors."

"With Internet gambling, it's going to become a major problem to treat people," Petry added. "Already, only about 10 percent of those who have an addiction seek help. With Internet gamblers, it's likely the percentage will be even less."

What can online casinos do that normal casinos can't? A Web site can con people out of their money, and there is little recourse in the event of fraudulent behavior.

Web site operators can credit winnings incorrectly or not at all and then hide in the anonymity of cyberspace. With these casinos in different countries and the relative absence of legislative regulation, online gambling is a gamble in itself.

In addition to its susceptibility to deception and deceit, a U.S. Senate committee report found that the detached environment of the Internet may contribute to gambling addiction. The report cited the readily accessible nature of online gambling, the absence of tangible money and the immediacy of the bets as attributes that could help develop gambling addictions in a much wider segment of the population.

Having established the possibly detrimental nature of these Web sites, federal lawmakers are considering several bills that would limit and regulate online gaming.

The Senate Commerce Committee also recently approved the Amateur Sports Integrity Act. Though not yet adopted by the Senate, several U.S. senators have proposed an addition to the bill that would make universities responsible for their students' online gambling habits.

The bill would dictate that universities monitor their Internet facilities to identify online gambling. Any university failing to do so would lose its federal education funding.

With the absence of current legislation, some credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard are responding to customer complaints by refusing charges for Internet bets in certain cases. But that doesn't do much for the people who've already managed to break their bank accounts while sitting in front of the computer.

[jjgold]

online gambling is ruining the structure of America

[Bostongambler]

So is alcohol...So is the aging process... But we can't stop those either...

[THUMPER]

gambling is bad, mmmkay?

[TTinCO]

"According to the California Council on Problem Gambling, addicted bettors between the ages of 18 and 25 face an average annual individual loss of $30,000"

BULLSHIT

[pmj18]

Gambling leads to "risky sexual behaviors", reno, quit talking to these people when they call, you are giving all of us a bad reputation.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[vega007]

"Such problems include substance abuse, circulatory disease, depression and risky sexual behaviors"


wtf is that all about??

[nfleqbc]

Drinking yourself silly after a major bad beat (or if your Bostongambler and doing action beers) I could see. Circulatory disease is probably from having a heart attack during said bad beat (or good beat, I suppose). Depression from realizing that you're not as sharp as you thought you were.

Risky sexual behaviors? /me scratches my head at that one...

[Altice]

If circulatory disease comes from a sport other than basketball, then you really have a gambling problem!!!!!