11, Mar 2022
Why Online Gambling Continues to Grow Despite Internet-Based Gambling Laws

The past 20 years have witnessed a huge shift in gambling. In particular, the emergence of the internet has had a tremendous impact on the industry. At the beginning of the 1990s, the internet was used primarily for e-mail and news. Today, online gambling has become a huge business in the USA, Canada, and many European countries. In addition, new technologies such as smartphones, tablets, บาคาร่า and wearable devices, combined with the internet, have led to the development of new forms of gambling that are more and more popular.

The most important question for policy makers and regulators is: Why has online gambling continued to grow despite the fact that the law does not allow online gambling?

This paper attempts to answer this question and presents the following facts:

Definition of Online Gambling

According to the Council of Europe (2001), online gambling is defined as “…any electronic or digitalized procedure or system where money, credits, chips or other valuable objects are given or transferred from one person or organization to another through the medium of electronic communication” (Council of Europe 2001).

It is important to mention that “electronic communication” is understood in the widest sense of the term, because, in principle, it includes all types of communication over the internet.

The definition used in this study differs from that of the Council of Europe. The difference lies in the fact that the definition used in this study concerns Internet gambling only and does not include poker, lottery, and other kinds of gambling, which have no place in the internet.

In fact, the term “internet gambling” refers to the first two types of gambling that are referred to above.

Main Findings

It is possible to identify four trends that characterize online gambling.

First, the number of websites offering gambling activities continues to grow. This phenomenon is not surprising. The growth of online gambling and, บาคาร่า in particular, the expansion of online sports betting is a natural consequence of the enormous development of the internet in recent years. Today, it is possible to find almost any type of online gambling on the internet.

Second, despite the fact that the law does not allow online gambling, it is possible to find online gambling in many countries. This is a very interesting phenomenon that cannot be explained by the law. The development of online gambling has led to the establishment of a legal gray zone where it is possible to bet legally. This is a significant finding because it shows that there is no direct connection between gambling and its illegality. In other words, online gambling is a good and viable business model. It is legal and it has economic prospects.

Third, the spread of online gambling is not limited to North America and Western Europe. According to one estimate, in 2013, there were some 50 million players in Eastern Europe (Alker and Zhai 2013). However, most of these websites were not established by legal entities.