POLITICIAN CALLS FOR MONETARY LIMITS FOR ONLINE GAMBLING
Scots MP wants to limit online gambling to GBP 1 000 a week

Trust a politician to jump on a topical issue; the recent case in Scotland of a wayward son who gambled a sizeable chunk of his parents' fortune away in that country (see earlier InfoPowa reports) is possibly the motivation for a restrictive online gambling proposal by a Scots member of parliament.

   
The BBC reported that the Scots MP for Angus, Mike Weir wants online casino and poker room websites to accept only one credit card per gambler, with a GBP 1 000 a week limit.

It follows cases where gamblers have spent thousands on other people's cards and growing concerns over gambling addiction.

But both APACS, which represents the credit card industry, and Party Gaming.com claim there are major problems with the idea, saying that the way to tackle the problem is to deal with the person's addiction, rather than further limiting access to online gambling.

Online gambling has swept the UK, the BBC report reveals with 4 million people now playing each month. And this form of Internet entertainment is forecast to grow by 22 percent this year, bringing with it fears over the number of players with serious debt. The average online gambling debt in the country is GBP 25 000.

The industry already pays GBP 3 million a year into a trust set up specifically to deal with the issue of problem gambling.

Doctors warned earlier this week that internet gambling and super-casinos could cause an explosion in gambling addiction. Speakers at the British Medical Association's annual conference said that it had become easier to gamble and warned there was little support in place to help those who were addicted.

They called for research into prevention and the availability of more treatment.
 
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