“Is online gambling really developing into an Addiction?”

The Internet gambling industry in general and online poker in particular is expanding despite the issue of online gambling’s lawfulness in the United States. In the meanwhile, the United Kingdom has moved forward and enacted laws allowing gambling on the Internet underpinned with regulation and stringent controls, while the United States is struggling with the problem of dealing with Internet gambling. Consequently, PartyGaming, one of the major online poker operators, is intending to make a flotation this month on the London Stock Exchange. PartyGaming is evaluated by financial sources at five and half billion pounds and with its public offer is about to outpace names such as Cable and Wireless, Boots and British Airways the most well-known companies. Assuming that the public floating will succeed, an ex Californian lawyer, Ruth Parasol, who made a vast amount of money in the pornographic industry, together with her husband and two technological university graduates from India, are about to become billionaires.

In the year 2001 when television began broadcasting the Poker World Series, the enthusiasm for poker never stopped growing, and then with the arrival of online poker the popular phenomena of Internet poker grew more and more amazing. The Poker World Series began attracting people strongly to poker and viewers wanted also to play. These contests began appealing to many players and stars such as Nicole Kidman, Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matt Damon, whose viewing of these games pulled in even more people and helped to found one of the speediest expanding industries anywhere. The market of Internet poker grew to one point four billion dollars last year within the span of one year that is by four hundred and sixty six percent. This sum is due to reach two point nine billion dollars this year by doubling itself, according to the opinion of the industry’s specialists. Within the mere last twenty four hours, two hundred million dollars in bets were made announced by Pokerpulse.com, an Internet poker monitoring service. According to Richard Segal, the Chief Executive Officer of PartyGaming, by the company utilizing the Internet’s technology, people have been given the opportunity to play in their own time and convenience at home, and not as in an actual game where you have the frustrating and menacing fear of facing other players face to face.

Because of the anxiety that the ease to access online gambling sites will cause an extreme rise in the number of addicted gamblers, the online gambling industry is certainly criticized by quite a number of people. An organization known as Counselors at Gamblers Anonymous offers counseling to those suffering from gambling addiction, and does witness at first hand the consequences of the explosion of online gambling. A spokesman for Gamblers Anonymous compared online gambling to Internet pornography as he commented on the phenomenal increase in the amount of calls to assist in gambling addiction. Rather than actually purchasing items in a sex shop numerous people prefer the ease in clicking a computer monitor. The Internet was principally the gambling addiction culprit according to the claims of the majority of callers. However, because so much money is now being made from online gambling, this fast growing market will be very difficult to slow down.