|
Gambling at online casinos and
betting at online sports-books is quickly becoming a favorite
pastime of many of America’s citizens as well as other players
worldwide. Some of these players are under the legal age allowed
to bet at online casinos, but still visit online casinos because
online casinos are entertaining and are proof that gambling is a
societal norm all over the world. But often, with this easy
access to online casinos and the large sums of money available
for betting, gambling at online casinos comes at a very high
price for those involved.
The pitfalls and dangers of
gambling, whether offline or online, are obvious, but the recent
explosion of online casinos has seen more and more problem
gambling cases coming out of online casinos.
With the popularity of poker tournaments on TV like the World
Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour, people have begun to
turn to online casinos and get themselves into serious problems
because these online casinos have been proven to be quite
addictive. Since gambling at online casinos doesn’t seem as
dangerous as trying drugs or drinking too much alcohol, many
people don’t equate it on the same level of addiction and thus
they have no idea of the risks and the habits they are forming
at the online casinos. People watch poker on TV and see the
glamour of big cash prizes, large tournament pots, fancy cars,
and beautiful women, and this cloudy view often translates to
big losses on online casinos.
The federal government does nothing, and state governments and
gambling industry do little to fund prevention and treatment
programs for problem gamblers at online casinos, a new article
suggests.
Kathy Bassett said, an
anti gambling crusader, said "This is an industry worth hundreds
and hundreds of millions of dollars, and ... it means nothing to
them" -- meaning government, Indian tribes and gambling
companies that profit from legal gambling. Bassett said her
research showed that help for problem gamblers in the United
States is sporadic, inconsistent and badly underfunded.
Especially when compared with tobacco, alcohol and drugs --
addictions that states spend $2.5 billion a year to treat,
according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse at Columbia University. "Excessive gambling, drinking,
drugging are different expressions of a common, underlying
disorder," said Shaffer of his study. "But pathological gambling
is being viewed (by the government) like some rare disease --
much like AIDS was in its early stages. It doesn't get the
attention it should as a public health issue."
Not much money has been
allocated for medical and other research that might help detect
the problem of gambling addiction before it gets out of hand, or
provide guideposts for prevention. Congress did pay for a $5
million, two-year study of the social and economic implications
of gambling in the late 1990s, but little came of the
short-lived effort. Twenty-two states offer no programs at all,
a study found. |
