High Rollers In A Virtual Casino

Most of these operations are based in the operations are based in the Caribbean where gaming licenses are readily available and beyond the jurisdiction of regulators in the home countries of most of their customers.

This has created controversy in the US, where gambling is severely restricted in most states and off-track betting on horse races is prohibted.

US federal law prohibits the transmission of wagers and wagering information by wire. Traditionally, this has meant telephone lines, but law-enforcement officials say it should also apply to the internet.

In a report published last year by the National Association of Attorneys-General of the US, prosecutors decried the possibility that a PC-user in Hawaii might break the law by placing a bet on a sporting event in the UK via the internet.

A minor in Wisconsin, using a credit card which had been surreptitiously removed from a parents purse might be able to play a slot machine on a Caribbean island, the report bemoaned.

This is scare-mongering, according to Rolling Good Times, a publication on the internet dedicated to online gamblers. The punter in Hawaii could just as easily place a telephone call to the British bookie and the kid in Wisconsin who had filched a credit card would be more likely to take off for the Caribbean than to gamble on an Antiguan internet site, the nambling (Net gambling) advocates suggest.

The ability of police to enforce gambling laws on the internet is, in any case, limited. Finding online gamblers would require bugging private internet transmissions, internet transmissions, opening a can of worms far bigger than the gaming industry.

New York state has taken an if you cant beat them join them approcah. It is considering sanctioning off-track betting on the internet. Canada is also exploring the legalisation of internet casinos.

Leagal or otherwise, the opportunities for internet gambling are on the rise. Last week, the New South Wales Totaliser Agency Board (TAB) in Australia announced plans to put its horse racing operations online. The board claims taht later this year it will be the first totaliser in the world to accept transactions over the internet.

New Zelands board is also vying to be there first, with an internet site due to open in the next few months.

Centrebet, a privately owned company based in the Northern Territory of Australia, already operates an internet sports-betting site where odds are quoted on a wide range of events from American football to cricket.

The Australasian betting sites, run or regulated by state agencies, could bring a new measure of legitimacy to the internet gaming scene.

While high rollers may be willing to gamble on the virtual tables of distant, unregulated online cashinos, the TABs look like a safer bet for the casual punter.

Betting in Australia is a national pastime, with average annual spending - at A$400 (184 ponds) a head - twice the level in the US and even more than in Hong Kong. But even here there are concerns about internet gambling.

When you introduce a new form of gaming, the cake grows, says Professor Jan McMillan, head of the newly formed Institute for Gambling Research at the University of Western Sydney. Already about 3 per cent of household income goes on gaming in Australia. Thats more than we save, she says.

The fear on both sides of the Pacific is that internet gambling could make it all too easy for the young and addicted to place wagers. With no human interaction required, there is not even the threat of a disapproving glance or word to dissuade the solitary gambler.

Like slot machines in Las Vegas, personal computers tuned to internet gambling sites can eat up your money and return just enought to keep you entranced. The diference is that you can feed the computer in the privacy of your own home.

Today, however, internet gambling leaves much to be desired. Virtual casino sites tend to be tediously slow and not particularly attractive.

Few offer security measures to ensure users credit card information can not be inttercepted by hackers.

Yet advances in internet technology promise greater security and the prospect of more elaborate prospect of more elaborate gambling websites.

The New South Wales TAB, for example, plans to make the sounds and commentary of the last 400 metres of the latest horse races available on its website.

Caribbean casinos are also ugrading their software to include animated sequences.

Utlimately, internet gambling will be much like playing a video game - except the stakes are higher.

In the not-too-distant future, virtual reality could recreate the atmosphere of a real life casino and high speed data communications lines could quicken access to websites all over the world.

Steve Toneguzzo, an adviser to Australian government gambling agencies, predicts the global internet gaming industry will grow to US$50bn (30 pond bn) by the turn of the century. His bet is as good as anyones.

Gambling on the internet is taking off, say Louise Kehoe and Nikki Tait