This week the U.S. House of Representatives is debating over whether online gambling should be regulated or simply prohibited. At the same time, the recent release of a study, commissioned by WiredSafety and conducted by Harvard professor Malcolm Sparrow, asserts that regulation, and not prohibition, would best mitigate the risks posed by online gambling. This line of thinking may be in part why implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) has been delayed, and why many are now discussing a separate bill, H.R. 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act.

Providing further testimony in favor of regulation, executive director of WiredSafety, Parry Aftab spoke to the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, arguing that a system which ignores the problem cannot solve it. According to Aftab:

The status quo offers no meaningful assurances that consumers will be protected… Without regulations to handle underage gambling, addictive gambling, fraud, collusion, malware and malicious code, privacy and data protection, criminal involvement, disputes and online security threats, consumers and families are on their own.

As a pioneer in anti-fraud and safety solutions for online businesses including online casinos, we believe that regulation is both desirable and possible. We’ve helped many companies not only combat financial fraud, but also maintain compliance with responsible gambling practices, such as self-exclusion programs and minimum age requirements. If the government chooses to move in favor of regulation, and not prohibition, many would benefit.

Tags: gaming fraud, Online Fraud

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Online Gambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.