Internet Gambling

A Critical Analysis of Online Gambling Websites

Caroline Jawad
Swansea Business School
Swansea Metropolitan University
Email: [e-mail]

Stephen Griffiths
Swansea Business School
Swansea Metropolitan University
Email: [e-mail]

SMU
Mount Pleasant
Swansea
SA1 6ED
01792 481118 (Direct Line)
01792 481132 (SBS Office)
Fax [phone]

Keywords: Internet gambling, problem gambling, gambling regulation

Paper presented at the 2008 EBEN-UK ANNUAL CONFERENCE, Cambridge

2 April 2008

Please do not quote without permission.
(10.03.08 CJ & SG)

Abstract

Gambling online is growing exponentially, without the protection of reliable regulatory structures that ensure age and identity verification, the integrity/fairness of the games, or that responsible gaming features are included on a site. In a poorly regulated Internet environment, this study investigates gambling on twenty online sites. Content analysis was utilised to evaluate whether the sample displayed responsible gambling features. In the absence of established, agreed, regulatory evaluation criteria, the researchers constructed their own, based on examples of good practice on available websites and following the recommendations of the Gambling Review Report 2001 and the Gambling Act 2005.

The primary findings suggest that most online gambling sites are responsible and most show elements of good practice, which is of interest given the unregulated environment and absence of policing. While some features are derived from conventional gambling policies and regulatory influences, some are unique to the special ethical risks of gambling on line. Web designers and commissioning organisations appear to have anticipated social criticisms by incorporating guards against unethical outcomes before regulatory controls have been imposed. As the impossibility of regulating/controlling the Internet is a common cliché in many commentators’ analysis, this self

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