Since a few years, online gambling games as online casino and poker have more and more success. The ease of access to these place of amusement and their availability 24 hours a day and 7 days a week are effectively a great advantage of this kind of service. However, land based casino still have their place in the heart of fans of gambling. Every day, after their long hours at work, players who like casino game spend some hours in these places and have some contact with the place and the game before returning home. Indeed, the hours spent in these places are not only moments of relaxation and recreation but also a moment that can let them win a few dollars or why not win a jackpot. And now, the same advantages of land based casino, its jackpots, its games, its atmosphere added by bonus and availability from anywhere can be accessed from an online casino.

It still surprises the life out of us; how many people – supposedly adults – refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and mistakes. This story is a prime example; where a 37 year old gambling addict in France is suing the Government for €100K.

As long as he keeps blaming someone else for his actions, he will never come to terms with his problem. If he actually wins the case and gets the money in his hands; we will take odds of 20-1 that he gambles it right back again.

The reason why this problem online gambler is taking the government of France to court, is because they failed to prevent him from playing online poker. At least this is what his lawyer claims. As far as we are concerned his lawyer is encouraging the man to be irresponsible, when he should be learning a life lesson.

The lesson is, if you gamble more than you can afford you get burned. If you don’t learn from the lesson and keep making the same mistakes over and over again, then something is wrong with that person. This is what ‘experts’ label ‘problem gambling’. The government isn’t the problem, people are the problem.

With of issues like problem gambling, and people’s failure to take care of them-selves; gambling concerns and the Government put money aside to develop self-exclusion, exclusion and other programs. This gentleman registered himself with the Interior Ministry of Reims last year, to voluntarily be banned from online poker rooms, casinos or other gambling websites. His lawyer’s argument is that his client was still allowed access to gambling sites.

As far as we are concerned, his lawyer is an ambulance chaser of the worse kind to encourage a case like this, but what we think is besides the point. If this court case is won by the defendant it could set a dangerous precedent; where people get to blame their government and an exclude themselves from any blame.

The lawyer said that his client wished to remain un-named – I would be embarrassed too – and to quote the lawyers own words ~ “It’s all well and good to moralise about online games but we all know that they rely on the addiction and sickness of players.” If we were an online gambling site, we would take this lawyer to court, and sue him for being ignorant.

Online casino do not prey on the addiction of sick individuals, they offer a service which to the majority of people is just good entertaining fun. Does a pharmacy “rely on the addiction and sickness” of drug abusers? Because there are millions of ‘legal’ drug abusers who rely on their local pharmacies to get a fix. Again, people are the problem, not the drugs or the pharmacies.

Currently the gambling laws in France allow people addicted to gambling to register themselves with the Interior Ministry. The ministry provides list to gambling licensees and they are responsible for banning the names on these lists. Currently the list contains the names of 36 000 problem players, and we are keen to watch this space and see what happens next.

There is so much hype regarding online gambling in the USA today. Everyone seems to believe that this industry is going to be legalized, so, it is in the news virtually every day. Let’s face facts, this is a massive potential market worth billions of dollars, so, is a very newsworthy event. However, despite the fact that Mary Bono Mack has conducted a number of hearings in respect of a congressional OK, she is still saying “if” and not “when”.

The state of Nevada in the US, has already passed “GO” regarding online gambling activities. It is envisaged that they will start issuing licenses early in 2012. Bearing this in mind, the Mary Bono Mack hearings, under the auspices of a House commerce subcommittee, has been hearing from experts, one of whom is the Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman – Mark Lipparelli. He gave testimony regarding the policing of these games.

According to Lipparelli, policing is a simple matter with the online gambling technology which is available today. The Government of Belgium for example has signed agreements with Internet Service Providers, to block specific sites that appear on non-government-licensed site blacklists. Nevada will essentially be benchmarking this industry for the USA, for when or if, Federal regulation takes place. There could not be a more appropriate state as theirs is a gambling-driven industry.

There are obviously fears that if online gambling is made legal in the USA, things will spiral out of control. Currently these activities are banned under the principles of ‘protection of the vulnerable’. There are also fears – and lets face facts, the US keeps their residents in a state of fear – that online gambling will open up the doors to fraudulent activities. Mark Lipparelli reassured the hearing that online gambling systems provide the ability to create highly unique fingerprints for online players. This does not take place in the land gambling industry.  He said that conservatively speaking, some players or cheats may be able to cheat the system and get away with it once, but it will be easy to find them out and they won’t get away with it twice.

As far as gambling addiction, cheat bots, underage players, money laundering and other fraudulent online gambling activities are concerned; there are controls and analytical tools in this software which ferrets out unusual betting behaviours. Before the online gambler even spends a penny they are compelled to complete in-depth information, and this is backed up by corresponding information that has to be submitted before any withdrawals can be made. It is this that creates the unique finger-print, from addresses, telephone numbers, identification, right down to bank accounts. In fact many fraudsters and cheats have been caught out in the UK, simply by tracking them down on their IP address.

There are many paths for legalizing this industry, which may start with online poker only, for example, but currently the path for legislators remains unclear. Hopefully the Mary Bono Mack hearings will change all of this.