Professor Calls
for Legal Online Gambling in N America
July 22 - When June Cotte, marketing professor of the University of
Western Ontario in Canada, embarked on a lengthy research project on all aspects of
online gambling, little did she expect to end up in support of the legalisation
of the popular Internet pastime.
Together with her colleague, Kathryn Latour, of the University of Nevada, in the
United States, Cotte interviewed a number of regular land casino gamblers and a
number of regular online gamblers
to discover which of the groups gambled more often and more aggressively.
During her research, she discovered that online gamblers are more likely to
gamble for longer because they can gamble from the privacy and security of their
own homes or offices, whenever they have free time.
Also, she found it easier for
online gamblers to deposit additional playing funds.
'In a land casino if a gambler runs out of money, they have to physically have
to walk over to a cashier or to an ATM machine.
This is good because at least it
gives them a cooling off period where they have the opportunity to think about
their actions. This is not the case in online casinos,' she said.
'I believe that because so many people out there are already gambling online, in
an industry worth between $12 billion and $15 billion a year, it makes sense to legalise
and thus regulate it.
'It would mean that online gamblers can be protected, and problem
gamblers can be recognised and receive the necessary assistance.'
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