World Cup
Boosts Online Casinos
UK online casinos industry giants agree that more
than £1bn is likely to be gambled on the tournament by UK
gamblers alone: five times the £200m figure for the 2002 World
Cup.
The growth in online casinos makes it much easier for people to
place a bet from home or their workplace. Online casinos provide
instant access like never before. And a key difference from the
2002 World Cup is that - whereas then bets stopped just before
kick-off - now people can now bet on a game while it is taking
place at online casinos.
A British newspaper reported that within an hour of logging on
to one of the top online casinos, Richard Mahan had won £90,000.
But his luck soon changed and, ignoring the common advice of
online casinos gamblers everywhere, he tried to claw his way
back.
He used 13 of his parents’ credit cards and, as he gambled into
the early hours, ran up debts of £158,000. Mahan, 25, then tried
to kill himself in what is believed to be Scotland’s worst case
of online casinos addiction.
His parents, called in the police after the credit card
companies told them that their insurance would not be valid
unless they did so.
Forfar Sheriff Court was told on Thursday that Mahan kept
gambling at online casinos at his parents’ home in Brechin,
Angus, in April last year until he exhausted the limits on all
the credit cards.
Sheriff Kevin Veal said: “If £150,000 can be lost in 50 minutes
under clandestine conditions in the early hours of the morning,
it is an issue so great that it needs to be addressed by the
wider community. It is a social issue.”
Another British newspaper also reported that a website will
launch next week to curb online casinos betting by gamblers who
fear they may be addicted.
People who frequent online casinos will be able to sign up to
the Global Self Exclusion Database website, which will prevent
them from opening an account with many online casinos.
The British paper says that one of the top online casinos said
earlier this year that its first-quarter revenues rose by 54 per
cent to $342.6m (£185m), after record numbers signed up to play
poker.
During the second half of England's World Cup game against
Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday, nearly a quarter of a million
fans visited sports and gambling online casinos.
While gamblers are predominantly men, more women are signing up
for online casinos services - females now accounted for 40 per
cent of the total, said Nielsen Net Ratings.
According to GamCare, the gambling charity, a quarter of addicts
using the charity's online message forum are female. Women
represented only 2 per cent of its counseling clients in 2000.
This grew to 18 per cent last year.
The overall number of people contacting GamCare's forum has also
been increasing, with more than 40,000 people visiting the site
in the three months to December.
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