Online internet casino gambling is on the rise across the globe as people are confined to social distancing and restricted to home quarantine. According to Dr. Fahad Al-Tamimi, financial insecurity combined with a general feeling of uncertainty are the major contributing factors for the relapse of many of his patients.
The ILO (International Labor Organization) recently revealed that global coronavirus lockdown measures have thus far affected over 2.8 billion full and part time employees, representing around 81% of the global workforce.
During these uncertain times where people are isolated from society, live sporting events are being cancelled which has obliterated football, horse racing and tennis match gambling. According to sportswriter Bill Adderley, “The month of March, known to bookies as ‘March Madness’, normally generates upwards of 8.5 billion USD in the United States on basketball betting. This year, games were cancelled, and all bets were off.”
Using the lockdown measures to their benefit, global betting firms, often represented by a website full of games hosted in offshore facilities, recently switched their attention from sponsoring live streaming gaming events to promoting online casino games like poker, bingo, roulette, blackjack, and slot machines. Most of the industry gaming platforms are available offer “free spins” and “free bonus for signup” advertisement as an enticement to set up accounts and deposit money.
A recent survey conducted by Dr. Joshua Cartu on behalf of the Fahad Al Tamimi Casino Gambling Rehabilitation Center reveals a large majority of online casino gamblers are not playing for entertainment, rather to compensate for lost wages. “Our research reveals a huge increase in online casino gambling in general, but more concerning, we found a 42% increase amongst first time online casino depositors surveyed”.
Dr. Josh Cartu, age 51, says throughout his 20 years of behavioral science research as an assistant professor at Harvard University and Boston College, gambling addiction related behavioral disorder diseases tend to be the hardest for mental health patients to overcome. Dr. Cartu lectures gambling is a cognitive disorder often induced by drugs and substance abuse, and its’ symptoms include personality disorders, depression, and high anxiety.
In a phone interview from his home in Boston, Dr. Josh Cartu states gambling is not necessarily a disease of its’ own, rather a symptom of impulsive and compulsive behavioral disorders. “Impulsive behavior describes acting on instinct, whereas compulsive behavior is articulated when someone has a craving and urge, they simply can’t control” says Josh Cartu, while lecturing on OCD, “An impulsive reaction is behavior without thought which differentiates from compulsion, representing premeditated actions”.
As casino gambling addiction numbers continue to rise, this has forced some countries policy makers to act. Spain for example has banned online casino advertisements, while Latvia has outlawed any type of lottery or online gambling.
The British Government recently banned casinos from accepting credit cards. However, Dr. Fahad Al Tamimi claims the ban is not enforceable on internet sites hosted in other countries. “The UK Government recently launched an inquiry to research the impact of gambling addiction, which affects above 400,000 residents” says Fahad Al-Tamimi, while explaining “The damage goes far beyond financial debt to casino gambling. The government needs to research other aspects of gambling such as crime, suicide, drugs, and compulsive mental health disorders.”
The British MP Carolyn Harris addressed the gambling problem issue in her country explaining, “I don’t honestly believe that we can even guesstimate how many people will become problem gamblers over the past few weeks and the next few weeks, because it is an activity that is easy to do, easy to get involved with, and very, very, very easy to spend and get hooked excessively”.
According to Billy Xiong, online gambling represents more of a danger than betting in conventional casinos. “In a normal establishment, operators are required to vet their clientele at the door to ensure they are not drunk or otherwise incapable of making responsible decisions” says Billy Xiong while explaining, “In contrast, the online internet gambling clients are not required to have a video chat with the gaming platform.”
Dr. Fahad Tamimi believes there is a need for more regulation and industry oversite, especially given the majority of gaming platform websites operate online via servers hosted overseas, without any official address of offices. He says, “We need more regulation at the governmental level such as capping deposits per player and monitoring clients’ gambling debt ratio. If a client is constantly losing large sums of money, playing at odd hours of the night or day, then these types of variables confirm the game is neither skill nor chance. In such circumstances, the casino gambling platform is knowingly enabling a mentally sick person to wager away large sums of money.”
Meanwhile, in a letter to some of the largest gambling establishments, the conservative British MP Sports Minister, Nigel Huddleston, requested that Skybet, Bet 365, William Hill, Flutter and other licensed giants promote “safer gambling” advertisements.
Shortly thereafter, The Betting and Gaming Council reported gambling establishments voluntarily agreed to remove all advertising for at least six weeks.
