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Online Casino Gambling --- Casino News

Eight Years Later

The latest Gambling Prevalence Study results were finally released this month, and most in the online casino industry are actually pleased with the results. Earlier in the month, before the official results were released, several media outlets were quick to assume that the study would indicate a significant rise in problem gamblers – and in fact, this was largely not the case. Though the online casinos industry has grown significantly over the past eight years, the incidence of problem gamblers has not. But the Gambling Prevalence Study does indicate new sectors of the industry where problem gambling is most prevalent.

This latest Gambling Prevalence Study was commissioned by the UK Gambling Commission, and will be used as a baseline comparison for future studies into the online casinos and land-based gambling and betting industries. Though several online casino companies expressed concern that the study would precipitate anger toward the gambling industries, now that the results have been released the attention is much more positive than anticipated. The UK Gambling Commission has created guidelines and regulations for the online casinos that work to not only identify and prevent problem gambling, but to address problems with underage gambling as well.

Online casino operators are generally in the clear. Instead, the study reported that spreadbetting and Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) showed the highest percentage of problem gamblers. Specifically, Spreadbetting is a major concern in the industry with 14.7 percent of spread bettors reporting problem gambling tendencies. Not much better are the video betting machines in bookie shops – touch screen roulette, video bingo and others. Within this sector of the industry 11.2 percent were problem gamblers.

The study included 9,000 respondents that were a representative section of Britains population. And from the study’s results, 0.6 percent of the population show signs of problem gambling – roughly 250,000 people. This is just the first of many studies into the online casinos and gambling industry that the UK Commission has planned for the coming years as a way to monitor the affect of gambling in the UK.