Alberta Canada considers Internet casino offering

Saskatchewan has made noises that it may offer some kind of internet wagering and now Alberta is indicating it too may offer online gaming in the future.

According to an article in the Calgary Herald the justification is that government run online casinos can aid charities, keep patrons informed about gambling addictions and make it a safer place for gamblers to spend there cash and help the provincial tax coffers at the same time. The article quotes a 2009 study by the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre that comes to the conclusion that approximately one in five internet gamblers have a problem. This is a rate three to four times higher than 'land based' gambling.

Once the government gets into offering online casinos to their residents, and money from those gamblers begins to flow the governments themselves get 'addicted' to the generated cash. The risk of problem gambling on the Internet is 37.9 % compared to 7.7 % for traditional land based gambling the report says. The Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre warns that online casinos are not as simple as running a lottery or horserace, and that there are many factors to consider before starting up an internet gambling operation.

As it stands though there are no regulations or recourse venues for online gamblers who spend us$ 1 billion betting on offshore web gaming sites.  The research co-ordinator for the Alberta Gambling Research Institute at the University of Alberta, Garry Smith commented on Alberta rolling the dice, "There’s potential in it for an increase in problem gambling, potential for the increase in youth gambling. It’s very hard to supervise people. They can do it at home. There’s no precautions out there. It would be difficult to stop money laundering using it, and (it) might just increase people’s overall gambling rate."