Australian Media Reporting Biased on Internet Gambling Issue

An article in the Australia's Sydney Morning Herald seems biased towards banning online wagering in the country as it plainly suggests that if online gaming was allowed to expand there would be an epidemic of problem and compulsive gambling.

Even though there are many objective scientific studies that point out that online gambling is no more harmful than any other forms of wagering, writers at the Sydney Morning Herald continue to be on the side of supposed experts with vested interests concerning problem gambling and online casinos.

The recent government's report produced by the National Productivity Commission, is expected to recommend regulating and licensing online casinos in Australia. Most legislators see the financial benefit of expanding legal betting in Australia noticing that millions of dollars flow unregulated to offshore online gambling sites with no benefit to the people of the country.

Detractors of online gambling regulations such as Senator Nick Xenophon, say that "rapid growth in online sports betting and poker will create a new generation of problem gamblers." This has been proven to be not true by many institutions that have put considerable effort into research on the subject of problem gambling on the internet. Sources such as Harvard Medical School found online gambling to have only very mildly addicting tendencies. Keith Whyte, director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, acknowledges the evidence shows online gaming does not seem to lead to any significant increase in compulsive gambling.

Australia is going down the slippery slope to censorship and prohibition, and will end up somewhat like America where the ban on online gambling has failed to stop the activity leaving the government of the USA trying to find a better solution than their UIGEA. Media sources should provide unbiased and balanced opinions but on the issue of internet gambling in Down Under that may not be the case.