Gambling on the internet, what is it? How does it work? Who does it? What’s it all about?

Internet gambling is effecting a lot of people in a big way, including Métis people. It’s one of those rapidly growing phenomenon’s that is literally exploding across the country and the world. According to some estimates, $2.3 billion (US) a year (2000) is being spent on Internet gaming worldwide, and the market has more than tripled in size since 1997 (Mitka, 2001). One study, which features details on more than 1,400 gambling sites available worldwide, estimates that the number of Internet gamblers will grow from approximately 4 million people in 1999 to 15 million by the year 2004 (Sinclair, 2000).

An alarmingly high percentage of children and adolescents have reported engaging in gambling activities. In one of our recent studies, we found 80.2% of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 reported having gambled (defined as wagering money) during the past 12 months, with 35.1% admitting gambling at least once per week. (Gupta & Derevensky, 1998a).

Use of computers and the internet for gambling purposes is growing astronomically and our Métis citizens are not immune from it!

I’ve selected an article from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto that I feel provides excellent insight in to internet gambling through personal experience about the use of the internet for gambling. Although the article is a few years old I believe it still provides us with a very real and useful description of what it is like to gamble using our computers and may even be more to the point in today’s rapid pace in 2008.

The following are excerpts from the article by Nigel Turner at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto: I've been curious about Internet gambling for a while. There's a lot of media interest in Internet gambling that appears to be grossly out of proportion to its status as a social problem. I was also curious about the appeal. Why do people go on-line to gamble? There is no socializing, no interaction, no night out. Perhaps that's part of the lure. You can feel pretty much anonymous.

Technically, on-line gaming in Canada is illegal. Here, only the government, charities and the horse industry can legally run gambling operations. However, Canadians are allowed to own gambling casinos that operate offshore. Most of the world's on-line casinos are located in the Caribbean, in the Dominican Republic for example. Several British on-line casinos were set up on the Channel Islands to avoid the U.K.'s gambling tax, and Australia recently started to license on-line casinos.

There are basically four types of gambling sites on the Web. First, there are on-line lotteries. Second, there are sports and race books where you're allowed to place bets on the outcome of sports games or races. Third, there are on-line casinos that include slot machines, blackjack, roulette, craps and various poker games. The fourth type is electronic stock-trading sites, which, although not technically considered gambling, are often used as a way of gambling.

After a short Web search, I found a number of gaming sites. I continued surfing to find ones with interesting games. By the summer of 2000, there were over 800 sites run by over 250 different companies. These numbers have likely doubled since then. At some sites, you have to download software. Downloading takes a few minutes.

Casinos usually have a tour in full-colour graphics, during which you can learn what games are available and the rules of the games. Some sites offer multiplayer games of blackjack and poker, where you can "chat" with the other players at the table. I selected PlanetLuck since they promised me multiplayer blackjack and poker.

Cashing in was a two-step process. I registered an account at PlanetLuck and was transferred to EzCash — an on-line bank that does the banking for a number of on-line casinos. EzCash set up my account, checked my age by asking what year I was born and took my credit card number, e-mail address and street address. At both the casino and bank, I had to set up a user name and password. In addition to asking me my card number and name, they also asked me for the address of the bank that supported my card. I thought that perhaps this was a credit check or a way of ensuring that I was not under-aged. However, I recently found out that it relates to a case in California where a woman refused to pay her credit card. She claimed that she didn't have to pay because Internet gambling was illegal. As a result, some credit cards refuse to honour gambling purchases.

I set up my account with a credit card that I rarely use so that I'd be able to keep track of the charges and payouts. I recommend using a card with a low limit to curb your losses in the event of fraud. However, in general, the sites are secure and honest. They know that cheating their customers is bad for business, so they tend to be honest. They want your money, and they know that you'll spend more if you win a bit. They know they'll win it all back eventually, so they do pay out for wins. But since much of the on-line gaming industry is unregulated, there is no guarantee that the site you've selected is legit. Some claim to be accredited or licensed, but there is no guarantee of honesty. (For more information on security issues, go to the FAQ section at www.clubchance.com.)

There is a lot of competition in the on-line gaming industry. So, many sites offer bonuses from 5% to 20% of your initial bankroll for opening an account. This dramatically cuts into their edge. But, there's a catch. You can't claim your bonus and then just cash out. You have to play two or three times the amount of the bonus, sometimes more, before you can cash out and claim your bonus.

The game seemed to progress in a manner consistent with a random drawing of cards, while playing against a house edge of about 2.5 per cent (the expected house edge for a player that usually follows the Basic Strategy described by Thorp, 1964). The rules of play were a bit more liberal than those in our local casinos. Betting $1 per hand, I initially just intended on playing until my $5 bonus was gone. I won a few hands, then started losing. Since Internet gaming is unregulated, there is no way of knowing how valid the randomization procedure is, but the experience was not unlike my other bricks-and-mortar gambling experiences; that is, I win some, lose some, win a bit back, while slowly, but surely, see my bankroll shrink. After losing about $17 US, I cashed out

I discovered something annoying — when you exit the site another site automatically starts up. This technique is also used by the porno industry (or so I've been told) to keep customers on their sites. To get out of this loop, you need to close the new site before it finishes loading up.

Over the next few weeks, I received an average of one e-mail promotion every two days encouraging me to return to that site or to try another site. One message encouraged me to go back to the site so that I could win a trip to Tahiti. Another told me that I could win a bonus of $1000 if I bet $100 on a roulette number. A recent message told me I could win a BMW and $100,000 in cash. Many messages mentioned bonuses for cashing in or for referring people to their on-line site. Another told me, "soon everyone would be a winner, you could be next."

On the plus side, on-line gambling is more affordable than casino table games. However, on-line gambling may offer a greater potential for incremental betting, which could lead to problematic play. On-line gambling offers the potential ability to monitor gamblers in order to detect problematic patterns of play, such as incremental betting and frequent re-buy-ins, which could then automatically trigger information about problem gambling.

Overall, I found that on-line gambling was a reasonably enjoyable experience. Cheaper, but less exciting than playing live. The greatest areas of concern from my point of view are security, availability and protecting adolescents.

Availability is a more difficult issue. On-line casinos are available from anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. The automatic loading of other sites and large amounts of promotional e-mail could be particularly difficult for problem gamblers. Autolinks could encourage a winner to try to win more, or a loser to try another site to win it back, and e-mail ads could induce a relapse.

In order to prevent internet gambling access by children parents should consider using blocking devices such as Net Nanny and keep credit cards out of their children's hands. Account names and passwords should also be kept hidden. Parents and educators must teach adolescents about their real chances of winning and dispel myths of "easy money" by showing how the games are stacked against them.

That was one person’s account of what it is like to participate in internet gambling. The article clearly demonstrates how easy it is for just about anyone that has access to a computer to be able to play (gamble) on-line regardless of their age.

Although Internet gambling by minors is illegal in Canada and the United States, enforcement can be difficult. Young people often conceal their age and location when registering on Internet gaming sites. In a 2002 study of 100 betting sites, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission found that 20 per cent of the sites posted no warning about age restrictions and most had no effective mechanisms to prevent minors from entering.

Kids today don't have to look far to find Internet gambling sites. Banner ads and pop-ups for casinos are everywhere on the Web, and often appear on sites popular with teens and even younger children. Many kids use sports betting sites where weekly winners are ranked and earn prizes. These sites are not considered to be hosting 'real' gambling activities because visitors don't play for cash. Nevertheless, kids learn how to bet on these sites, which also often link to online casinos.

"Neopets.com," an immensely popular site with pre-teens in Canada, allows visitors to create pets and then collect 'Neopoints' to spend on them. The games area offers a section called 'luck / chance' where kids can play gambling-based games such as 'Neopoker,' 'JubJub Blackjack' and 'Diceroo.'

Why would a site aimed at eight- to twelve-year-olds promote gambling style games? The answer is "grooming." The betting industry is one of the Web's biggest money-makers, and predictions are that Internet gambling will increase tenfold over the next few years.

Grooming activities help create a generation of kids who find gambling an attractive and familiar online activity.We as parents need to be much more vigilant and aware of what our young people are doing on-line. We need to set basic ground rules and provide as much information and awareness to them as possible concerning the dangers of what may seem to be harmless games (gambling) on the computer. A few simple rules that may help you to maintain a safe internet environment for your children are as follows:

• Make sure your children understand that many of the games and or gambling sites on the internet may be playing with “real money”.
• Be more vigilant about access to your credit cards by children
• Try to remain aware of your children’s activities on the internet.
• Advise and educate your children on what gambling and problem gambling are.For further information you may direct any questions or concerns on “Responsible Gambling” or “Substance Abuse” to:

Glen Lipinski
Addictions Wellness Coordinator
Métis Nation of Ontario
20 Division Street
Welland, ON.
L3B 3Z6
905-714-9864
glenl@metisnation.org