How Governments See Online Gambling Activities

Gambling has become, either we like to admit it or not, a significant and relatively easy way to raise funds for governments from countries all around the world. Despite the fact that there is a huge number of opponents of this industry, regulators are actually succeeding to raise important amounts of money used for funding anything from anti-gambling addiction programs to funding schools. For example, the Alberta government managed to raise enough money from gambling and alcohol in 2012 than from oil revenue.

There are, indeed, many countries who do not accept online gambling at this point in time, but gamblers can usually find solutions to play outside their jurisdictions. In the United States for example, only New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada legalized online casinos. Even so, gamblers can easily find ways to gamble without restrictions. Some governments are usually against online gambling activities because of the theoretical increasing number of gambling addicts around the world. This can easily be considered a huge misconception, as recent studies have shown different results. For example, a 2008 study in Switzerland revealed that the rates of gambling addiction have remained at the same level over the past ten years.

 Furthermore, a 2011 study quoted in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology showed that pathological gambling rates have not been fluctuating over the past 35 years. Hopefully for us gaming enthusiasts and operators who want to buy online casino software, governments who did not legalize online gambling yet should consider these results in the future.