In the battles being waged over whether online gambling should really be controlled in the us, one major argument has been that Web games could lead to a high rate of gambling addiction. The theory is that the access that is increased gambling products means that those many vulnerable to addiction may have an instant pipeline that enables them to pay money they can’t afford to reduce.

It is something that appears to seem sensible on a level that is intuitive however the information that’s being collected so far isn’t backing it up. A series of studies from the Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addiction has discovered that the vast most of Internet gamblers aren’t addicts, and are, in fact, extremely casual gamblers who are very good at environment limits for themselves.

Studies Conducted with bwin

The studies were finished with the cooperation of bwin, which provided researchers usage of information on thousands of players whom continued different online casino games over a period that is two-year. The studies included sports betting, poker, and general casino gambling. And in each case, 95 percent or a lot more of the gamblers studied gambled in moderation, while just one to five percent had been said to exhibit ‘intense gambling behavior.’

Into the full situation of the casino gambling study, significantly more than 4,000 case studies were examined. The average player gambled only once every two weeks, losing about 5.5 percent of the money they wagered over a nine-month period. When it came to recreations bettors, another study viewed 40,000 players, and found that the median gambler ended up being making 2.5 bets every day that is fourth with the wagers averaging $5.50.

Another study by the University of Hamburg, designed to help supplement the ongoing work being done at Harvard, looked exclusively at poker players. More than two million online poker players were analyzed over the course of six months. The median player was at the tables just for 4.88 hours over that duration, and nearly all players were paying less than a dollar per hour in rake.

Typical Gambler Spends Little Online

None of this is meant to state that compulsive gambling isn’t a nagging problem, or that issue gambling does not occur on the net. But it does claim that the level to which the Internet exacerbates problems that are such been exaggerated. An element of the reason for this may rest in how the data is presented: researchers used medians to show what the ‘typical’ gambler looked like, largely must be small percentage of ‘intense’ gamblers significantly affect the common numbers.

That research backs up previous numbers that attended out of studies, such as one conducted in 2007 by regulatory body eCOGRA. That study discovered that online poker players typically played two to three times a for an average of one to two hours, and that they paid about $1.20 an hour in rake week. That study also found that players just took about 6 per cent of the bankroll to a table an average of, meaning most players exercised reasonable bankroll management while playing.

One reason that the access provided by on line gambling hasn’t triggered a spike in addiction could possibly be as a result of distinctions between brick-and-mortar venues and their Internet counterparts. Researchers have found that a ‘playground’ model in a casino, one that uses hot colors, moving water, and green spaces, is most successful for encouraging individuals to gamble. These features may not be included for most gambling that is online although some sites have tried to boost the casino feel by using live dealer games.