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Gamblers are not actually seeking the most convenient or efficient place to win money, but the most comfortable space in which to lose it.
A series of studies conducted by the Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addiction, aimed at providing public policy makers with empirical research about Internet gambling,
have reached a few general conclusions about the behavior of online gamblers. In partnership with bwin, a large European gambling site,
the researchers were able to collect and analyze the data of tens of thousands sports bettors, online casino gamblers, and poker players over a period of two years.
From these studies, a prominent, unifying theme emerged: In each gambling category, the vast majority of players gambled infrequently and
in moderation, while a small subset of players (between 1 percent and 5 percent) exhibited intense gambling behavior that far exceeded that of the rest of the sample.
Out of over 4,000 online casino gamblers examined, the median betting frequency over a period of nine months was once every two weeks,
with a median outcome of around a 5.5 percent loss of all money wagered. One analysis of the roughly 40,000 sports bettors examined
determined that participants placed a median of 2.5 bets of $5.50 every fourth day. And researchers at the University of Hamburg,
in a study intended in part to supplement some of the work accomplished by the Harvard Medical School, found that from the over
two million online poker identities they observed over a period of six months, the median player played only 4.88 hours and most players paid
less than a dollar in rake fees per hour per table. (The separate studies placed emphasis on the median values, as they derived
that the small group of intense gamblers drove up the mean values considerably.)
All this data suggests that broadly available online gambling won’t likely be an agent of wholesale societal destruction, as some have claimed.
In fact, the effects of the vast increase in exposure to gambling that the Internet offers are, on a large scale, relatively mild. In 2011,
Howard Shaffer and Ryan Martin, then staff members at Harvard’s Division on Addiction, wrote that “contrary to predictions derived from the exposure model,
the prevalence of PG [pathological gambling] has remained stable or been influenced by adaptation during the past 35 years despite an
unprecedented increase in opportunities and access to gambling.” According to Shaffer, when new opportunities to
gamble are introduced into an area there is a short term increase in gambling behavior, but the frenzy eventually subsides and returns to normal levels.
In the case of Internet gambling, many people simply acclimate to the increased availability of betting options or become quickly tired of it
—sometimes in a matter of weeks.
SOURCE- FULLY STORY
A series of studies conducted by the Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addiction, aimed at providing public policy makers with empirical research about Internet gambling,
have reached a few general conclusions about the behavior of online gamblers. In partnership with bwin, a large European gambling site,
the researchers were able to collect and analyze the data of tens of thousands sports bettors, online casino gamblers, and poker players over a period of two years.
From these studies, a prominent, unifying theme emerged: In each gambling category, the vast majority of players gambled infrequently and
in moderation, while a small subset of players (between 1 percent and 5 percent) exhibited intense gambling behavior that far exceeded that of the rest of the sample.
Out of over 4,000 online casino gamblers examined, the median betting frequency over a period of nine months was once every two weeks,
with a median outcome of around a 5.5 percent loss of all money wagered. One analysis of the roughly 40,000 sports bettors examined
determined that participants placed a median of 2.5 bets of $5.50 every fourth day. And researchers at the University of Hamburg,
in a study intended in part to supplement some of the work accomplished by the Harvard Medical School, found that from the over
two million online poker identities they observed over a period of six months, the median player played only 4.88 hours and most players paid
less than a dollar in rake fees per hour per table. (The separate studies placed emphasis on the median values, as they derived
that the small group of intense gamblers drove up the mean values considerably.)
All this data suggests that broadly available online gambling won’t likely be an agent of wholesale societal destruction, as some have claimed.
In fact, the effects of the vast increase in exposure to gambling that the Internet offers are, on a large scale, relatively mild. In 2011,
Howard Shaffer and Ryan Martin, then staff members at Harvard’s Division on Addiction, wrote that “contrary to predictions derived from the exposure model,
the prevalence of PG [pathological gambling] has remained stable or been influenced by adaptation during the past 35 years despite an
unprecedented increase in opportunities and access to gambling.” According to Shaffer, when new opportunities to
gamble are introduced into an area there is a short term increase in gambling behavior, but the frenzy eventually subsides and returns to normal levels.
In the case of Internet gambling, many people simply acclimate to the increased availability of betting options or become quickly tired of it
—sometimes in a matter of weeks.
SOURCE- FULLY STORY
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