As online gambling becomes more pervasive throughout the world, countries have begun to take a serious look at the impact of this industry, how it operates, and what kinds of regulations need to be in place in order to ensure that their citizens are not involved with shady online casinos.
In response to an increase of online gambling in Australia, Australian governments have begun to take a long, hard look at these websites, collecting data and compiling a report that was released earlier this year.
At over 430 pages long, the report can be found and read online, though the gist of the study is this: Of the nearly 20,000 people polled, only about .6% of the population was involved in online gambling. Because of these low numbers, the researchers concluded, it would be difficult to determine whether or not online gambling exacerbated or fed into problem gambling.
The study also showed that most of the people who participated in online gambling were young, intelligent males, with steady jobs, and that their gambling was low to moderate, very rarely heavy, and that the vast majority of those who gamble online also gamble offline. The most common “game” played related to sports-centric wagers, followed closely by standard casino games, then by the lottery, and then, trailing in fourth, was poker.
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