A research done by the director of the Harvard Medical School’s Addictions Department, Dr Howard Shaffer, in conjunction with Bwin, an online gambling company based in Austria has proved that since the 1970s there has been a big reduction in the proportion of problem gamblers among the population.
Surprisingly, this is despite the fact that there has been in increase in the United States in the amount of general gambling since the 1970s.
They found that there is much more discipline in the way that online gamblers are gambling at present compared to the 1970s.There has been a drop of problem gamblers among the population from 0.7 percent in the 1970s to 0.6 percent of today’s population.
Dr Shafer was surprised that a vast majority of gamblers presently gamble very sensibly.
This report will be a boost for pro-gambling US lawmakers in their attempt to overturn the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act which bans internet gambling by making it an offence to transfer funds from a financial institution to Internet gambling sites.
Dr Shaffer feels that the best way to keep gamblers safe from problem gambling is through education and public awareness programs rather than from preventing them from gambling online.