Casino Choice UK News Archive
Panorama airs program on online gambling
The premise of the program was that over $1 million people each year could get hooked on online gambling due to a new law, and it appeared from the outset that the program makers were out to prove this point, rather than investigate it.
This meant a highly slanted view of the online gaming industry was portrayed, with carefully selected experts offering opinions that were not counter-balanced and figures manipulated to disguise the reality of the situation. One particularly galling moment was when the programme’s narrator stated that an average of $5.8 million people visited online gambling sites between April and September, clearly implying that the same figure were actively involved in gambling for money. The truth however, is that only a tiny fraction of those “visitors” will have signed up to play for money, and only an even smaller portion of those people will be regular gamblers.
The picture painted by Professor Jim Orford, an addiction specialist from Birmingham University, was one of social Armageddon. At one point he claimed that most people would eventually have a friend or family member with a gambling problem if the new laws remained.
While no-one can yet know what effect the Gambling Act 2005 will ultimately have on our society, it is unlikely these overdramatic predictions of doom will be close to the truth. Ultimately the new laws should be welcomed, but treated with caution. The bottom line is that regulation is always better than prohibition, and is the best way to help the authorities identify and protect problem gamblers.
This meant a highly slanted view of the online gaming industry was portrayed, with carefully selected experts offering opinions that were not counter-balanced and figures manipulated to disguise the reality of the situation. One particularly galling moment was when the programme’s narrator stated that an average of $5.8 million people visited online gambling sites between April and September, clearly implying that the same figure were actively involved in gambling for money. The truth however, is that only a tiny fraction of those “visitors” will have signed up to play for money, and only an even smaller portion of those people will be regular gamblers.
The picture painted by Professor Jim Orford, an addiction specialist from Birmingham University, was one of social Armageddon. At one point he claimed that most people would eventually have a friend or family member with a gambling problem if the new laws remained.
While no-one can yet know what effect the Gambling Act 2005 will ultimately have on our society, it is unlikely these overdramatic predictions of doom will be close to the truth. Ultimately the new laws should be welcomed, but treated with caution. The bottom line is that regulation is always better than prohibition, and is the best way to help the authorities identify and protect problem gamblers.
Submitted: 2006/11/28 at 13:15:25
