Many of the biggest opposers of online casinos claim that gambling online is addictive. Until now no one has ever been able to prove that, but no one has also managed to disprove it either. Bwin, one of the biggest online gambling sites in the world, claims that a survey that they’ve made may be the answer for all of those critics. The survey, which was conducted with the cooperation of the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), an affiliate of the prestigious Harvard Medical School, is scheduled to be made public soon, although some of the results were already published.
The online gambling site describes this survey as the “first public study of actual e-gaming behavior” – certainly an ambitious statement. Richard LaBrie, the CHA Director, presented the first results of the survey at the Global Interactive Gaming Summit & Expo, last week in Montreal. According to Labrie, only one percent of the 40,499 respondents showed a beahvior which can be explained as a gambling problem.
According to the study, which took 8 months, the average amount of money wagered by 99% of people during that period was 148 Euros – much less than what they had expected. In addition, LaBrie emphasized the fact that even those considered problematic, were spending no more than the equivalent of “one good bottle of wine a day”. As to the methodology, all of the respondents were Bwin’s customers, with the study covering both regular and live action bets. It might not be a scientific proof yet, but all of those claiming that online gambling is addictive, may want to rearrange their thoughts again.