You bet your life: e-gambling threat worries addiction experts

Nevada has become the first US state to legalize online gambling, and public health and addiction medicine advocates are warning that any large-scale move to Internet gambling will exact a heavy toll.

However, the lure of a cut from the approximately $4.56 billion a year that online gaming already earns — a figure that will likely double in the next 2 years — is proving too strong for some governments. Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn signed legislation on online gaming in June, even though the US Justice Department has deemed this type of gambling illegal. New Jersey has a similar e-gaming bill in the works, and several Canadian First Nation band councils have set up online casinos. Great Britain recently shook the gaming world with a tax change designed to bring home online gaming operations that had moved offshore.

The potential revenue for governments is huge — in Nevada a 2-year online gambling licence will cost $745 000 — but the social costs worry addiction specialists.

“The real threat comes from the isolation and secrecy of the betting activity itself,” Kevin O'Neill, deputy director of New Jersey's Council on Compulsive Gambling, told CMAJ. “I call this threat the cave syndrome due to the gambler's isolated behaviour and hidden activity.”

Online gambling remains on the periphery in Canada, but attempts to legalize it — Liberal MP Dennis Mills tried to do this with a private member's bill in 1997 — will likely continue because of the vast amounts of money to be made.

O'Neill says Canada's determination to treat pathological gambling as a public health issue means the country is further ahead than the US in dealing with the problem. However, he warns that gambling will likely always claim victims. A recent one was self-acknowledged problem gambler Daniel Naudi, 47, who shot himself in the parking lot of the Montreal Casino because of heavy losses.

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