Is Internet gambling on the
horizon?
June 25, 1997
Web posted at: 9:30 p.m. EDT (0130 GMT)
JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (Reuter) -- Widespread Internet
gambling -- potentially raking in hundreds of billions of dollars --
could become reality very soon, and authorities must act now to
stop it, a state official urged Wednesday.
Rapid progress is being made in overcoming technological barriers
to wagering in cyberspace, such as slow connections to the
Internet and problems with exchanging money, Wisconsin Attorney
General James Doyle said.
"The great concern here is that in a very short period of time,
people will have in essence a video gambling machine in their own
home and they can go and lose $500, $1,000, $1,500 just as their
evening's entertainment instead of sitting down in front of a
television set," Doyle said.
"That's going to put enormous pressures on us in the states -- not
only law enforcement, but the kind of social problems, financial
problems that that creates," Doyle told Reuters.
"You will be able to play a video blackjack game sitting in your
home," he said.
'Astronomical' amounts of money at stake
If Internet gambling takes off, huge amounts of money could
change hands. "I think there's no doubt you're dealing with
hundreds of billions of dollars. ... The amount of money we're
talking about is just astronomical," Doyle said.
Doyle spoke after briefing other state attorneys general on the
latest advances in Internet gambling at a meeting of the National
Association of Attorneys General in Grand Teton National Park in
Wyoming.
A report prepared for the association by staff members warned
that in the last year, technological advances had brought
widespread gambling on the Internet -- a global network of
computer networks -- closer to reality.
Calling on states to take action
"The question is no longer whether there will be gambling available
on the Internet, but when it will be available and what states can
and should do when it gets here," the report said.
Internet gambling is illegal in most states although some states'
gambling laws are outdated and may not apply to the Internet, said
Doyle, who co-chairs NAAG's Internet Working Group. Unlike
traditional forms of gambling, Internet gambling is difficult to detect
and difficult to regulate, Doyle said.
He said there were only limited forms of gambling on the Internet
now. But he added: "We think we are a very short time away from
having much more wide open gambling."
The video gambling scenario he described could become a reality
"within a few years," Doyle said.
Law enforcement officials were currently concerned about
lottery-type games offered over the Internet, he said. "But where
this is going is an actual interactive, rapid kind of video game which
we know ... are the most addictive," he said.
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