Online gambling is any type of gambling conducted online. This includes casinos, live casinos and online sports betting among others. The first online gambling site open to the public, was online ticketing for the first ever Liechtenstein International Poker Tournament in October 1994. Since that time online gambling has grown at an exponential rate and today there are online casinos which have become very popular and successful. All this means one thing, over the past several years online gambling has become very popular and that popularity continues to grow.
There are many people that are concerned about online gambling because of the fact that they believe it offers a poor quality of gambling experience. These people believe that online casinos should not be supported or funded by the government because they feel it is stealing from the taxes of the citizens. The government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the tax funds generated are used for public services and programs. They support online gambling because it generates a substantial amount of revenue for the government. The U.S. government provides financial aid to many different kinds of non-profit organizations so that they can conduct charitable activities. There are many ways to make money other than gambling and if online gambling is the only way people are finding to make money then the government is making a mistake.
There are state and local governments that provide casino gambling to their municipalities. In California for example they have adopted a law that says all online casinos must get the consent of the local authority before they can operate in the state. It is important to understand that this does not prevent the operation of casino gambling websites within the jurisdiction of the state because the courts have the authority to grant certain exception for the operation of these types of gambling websites.
The second argument that is often raised against online gambling relates to consumer protection. Many people worry that online gambling websites are not subject to the same consumer protection laws as traditional casinos. This is largely untrue and there are several reasons why. First of all because the Internet does not require people to spend their money in a brick and mortar casino it is easy to realize that this type of business will be able to resist stricter regulations.
The third argument relates to availability of resources. The U.S. government has made it clear that they do not support regulation of online gambling because the Internet is readily available throughout the country. There are not close to the same amount of problems that exist with regulation of traditional casinos. It is also easy to understand why the government does not want to interfere with the free market when there is money involved. There are hundreds of online casinos available and they are easily accessible by anyone anywhere.
The fourth argument that is often raised against online gambling relates to addiction. One common argument against online gambling is that people are more likely to become addicted to online gambling than to slot machines in a traditional casino. Although there is a correlation between online gambling and addiction there is no real way to determine whether or not this is true. However, the number of people that have become addicted to poker and slots in the past few years has increased dramatically and this does certainly support the notion that this form of business is not inherently addictive.
