Online Casino Guide for Newbies

— Newsweek, 10/28/02; Reuters Health, 10/28/02
Those who try their luck on an online, virtual casino lose money twice as fast as their counterparts in a real-life, physical-world casino, according to the operator of one Internet gambling site.

In 2002, online gamblers were expected to lose some $3.5 billion. Every week about 2 million people visit any of the more than 1,800 virtual casinos, making it one of the Internet’s fastest-growing industries.
Online gambling is an industry that’s virtually unregulated, because unlike real-world casinos in the U.S., virtual casinos are operated offshore. Some credit card companies, under pressure from the government, have begun to reject transactions between customers and online casinos, but their measures aren’t foolproof.
Newsweek used a credit card to test the transaction blocking – and it failed, because the transaction was coded, by the online casino, as being made with a French catalog merchant.
Even more tragically, according to Newsweek, too many times those who are running up bills at online casinos are underage. That means Internet gambling is already adding to a teen gambling epidemic that is causing numerous problems.
A recent study found that almost 70% of teens age 13-17 said they had gambled at some point in their lives, despite the fact it is illegal for them. Just as troubling, the study also found that about 4% of them exhibit the psychiatric signs of being pathological gamblers.
“We need to be aware that adolescents gamble, just as adults do,” said Dr. Martin Lazoritz, an associate chair of psychiatry at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “They play cards with their friends; they buy lottery tickets. We also need to be aware that underage gambling is associated with several at-risk behaviors, such as cigarette smoking, and with alcohol and drug use.”
The study examined the behavior of 1,051 teenagers in Florida in December 2001.

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