New Zealand's Online Gambling at Six Percent
Published: Thursday, June 18, 2009 Online-Casinos.com
New Zealand is a conservative place for the most part and its people have a fairly good grip on day to day life. It is a bit surprising when the statistics were revealed for how much New Zealanders spend on online gambling each week.
Reports from the New Zealand Herald newspaper, from a survey by the Racing Board of the island nation stated that New Zealanders are gambling about NZ$40 million a week on overseas websites, almost double the amount the punters spend on the state lottery.
The Racing Board's survey found that 177 000 people or 5.7 percent of New Zealanders, are gambling on international websites, overseas lotteries and sports books. They are spending NZ$2.1 billion a year, or just under $40 million a week wagering online.
Only $5.5 million a week is being spent on offshore racing and sports betting, and the rest on other forms of gambling.
Spokesperson for the Problem Gambling Foundation, David Coom said the survey pointed out that overseas online gambling was "a really fast-growing problem". Mr. Coom also said, "It's totally unregulated and there's no ability to do any host responsibility around it. One of the big issues with problem gambling is that it flourishes and thrives in secrecy, and of course online you can just sit at home and access it all you like. "We are starting to see cases come through where parents are bringing in their teenagers who are spending up to 60 hours a week online. We are just about to embark on some research with youth to see what actually is going on."
The results of extensive user surveys on online gambling have already been published by internationally respected organisations such as the Harvard Medical School Addictions Division. Dr. Howard Saffer and his team have confirmed that online gambling is substantially less addictive than live gambling. It is hoped that Mr. Coom and his associates will look at this survey for direction.
About a sixth of New Zealand's total gambling spending is going overseas according to the report. The Racing Board's Bill Colgan said, "Many of these offshore operators are not required and do not have in place any proactive measures to minimize the harm from problem gambling," This comment was taken with a grain of salt as a little too generalized.
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