In the same article, Kevin O Neill, deputy director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, said that Internet sports gambling appeals to college-age people who don t have immediate access to a neighborhood bookie. . . . Studies . . . Gambling often has terrible consequences for families and communities. According to the Council on Compulsive Gambling, five percent of all gamblers become addicted. Many of those turn to crime and commit suicide.
Internet gambling is likely to have a deleterious effect on businesses and the economy.
It s redistributed among the rest of us in the form of increased prices on consumer goods. . . . The Internet not only makes highly addictive forms of gambling easily accessible to everyone, it magnifies the potential destructiveness of the addiction. The odds can be easily manipulated and there is no guarantee that fair payouts will occur. Further, gambling on the Internet is apt to lead to criminal behavior. Indeed, Up to 90 percent of pathological gamblers commit crimes to pay off their wagering debts.