Integrity

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Integrity Internet Sports Gambling

• European Gaming and Betting Association
• European Parliament
• Brussels, Belgium

February 17, 2009
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Acknowledgments

• Richard LaBrie
• Debi LaPlante
• Sarah Nelson
• Anja Schumann
• Ziming Xuan
• John Kleschinsky
• Allyson Pellar
• Leslie Bosworth
• Ingrid Maurice
• Sara Kaplan
• Gabriel Caro
• Chris Reilly
• Chrissy Thurmond

• bwin Interactive Entertainment, AG
• The National Center for Responsible Gaming
• The Las Vegas Sand Corporation
• Iowa Department of Public Health
• Nevada Department of Public Health
• Missouri Port Authority
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
  Alcoholism
• National Institute on Mental Health
• National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Objectives

• Review the meaning of INTEGRITY
• Show how studying actual gambling behavior rather
  than self-reports provides insight into whether
  Internet gambling compromises integrity
• Consider some of the findings from our
  Internet-based research

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Oversimplifying IntegrityThree Primary Types

• Self-integration - integrating parts of an
  individual or group into a harmonious whole
• Individual or group identity - consistency of
  commitment
• Representing personal virtue or moral purpose
  holding these virtues limit the set of commitment
  options for an individual or group

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Integrity the Internet

• The Internet has integrity when
• Technological components have consistency of
  design function (integration)
• You get what you pay for without deception
  (honest commerce)
• Internet use will not compromise the public
  health
• What people do on the Internet reflects their
  individual commitments, motivations, objectives

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Internet Gambling Might Challenge Internet
Integrity

• Population challenge
• Some observers have suggested that gambling will
  compromise the integrity of society, in general,
  and families, in particular
• Individual challenge
• Some researchers have suggested that the
  Internet, in general, and Internet gambling, in
  particular, will compromise the integrity of
  Internet users and Internet gamblers by
  encouraging disordered gambling

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Population ChallengeSpeculating About Exposure

• current data shows that when gambling
  activities are legalized, economies will be
  plagued with 100 to 550 increases in the
  numbers of addicted gamblers (probably within one
  to five years, but almost certainly within
  fifteen years).
• John Warren Kindt
• The Economic Aspects of Legalized Gambling
  Activities, Drake Law Review, 43, 1994, p.59.

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Evidence about the Population Challenge

• Prevalence of gambling disorders has been
  relatively stable during the past 35 years,
  despite dramatic increases in the growth of
  gambling exposure and access.
• In the United States, the rate of serious
  gambling disorders was 0.7 during the middle
  1970s. Today researchers estimate the rate to be
  about 0.6.

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Penelope Fitzgerald(British author)
If they dont depend on true evidence,
scientists are no better than gossips. Herbert
Flowerdew to Fred Fairly, in The Gate of Angels,
ch. 3 (1990).
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Internet Gambling Evidence Before 2007 No
Studies of Actual Internet Gambling Behavior
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Internet Gambling Evidence After 2007 Studies
of Actual Internet Gambling Behavior Begin to
Appear
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Internet Gambling

• Division on Addictions
• Collaborative

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bwin Longitudinal Cohort
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Self and Corporate Deposit Limits

• Corporate Deposit Limits
• Only 0.3 attempted to exceed deposit limits
• These subscribers evidenced higher average number
  of bets per active betting day and higher average
  size of bets
• Notification did not curtail betting behavior

• Self-imposed Deposit Limits
• 1.2 exercised the self-limit option for deposits
• These subscribers played a wider variety of games
  and placed more bets
• After imposing self-limits, fixed odds gambling
  changed. Players
• reduced their active betting days
• reduced the number of bets they made per day
• reduced the amount they wagered during specific
  time periods

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Account Closers Who Report Having Gambling
Problems

• DO INTERNET GAMBLERS REALLY CHASE THEIR LOSSES?

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Results
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Results Summary

• As gamblers approached their respective closure
  time, they
• had increasing monetary loss per bet
• increased their stake per bet
• bet shorter odds per bet
• made fewer bets per day

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Caveat

• We dont know how much disposable income these
  bettors had available
• Therefore, it is not possible to calibrate the
  social harms that these losses might have caused

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Conclusion
Despite the caveat about discretionary funds, the
results suggest that problem gambling is not as
common among Internet sports bettors as the
conventional wisdom suggested before we examined
actual gambling behavior.
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Dont Translate Opinion Gossip into Public
Policy

• Let Science be Your Guide

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Jean Rostand (French biologist, writer)
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a
premature truth. Pensées dun Biologiste (1939
repr. in The Substance of Man, A Biologists
Thoughts, ch. 7, 1962).
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Thanks Internet Resources

• www.divisiononaddictions.org
• www.basisonline.org
• www.thetransparencyproject.org
• www.expressionsofaddiction.com