19/01/2011, Online casino

The United Kingdom's Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sports has expressed his concern regarding the explosion in the number of compulsive gamblers in the country.

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he intends to forbid foreign online casino companies to advertise in the UK. He also wants to ban the use of credit cards for online gambling, because he thinks players should not risk their money, loaned by the credit card companies, on gaming.

“Ministers are concerned about the explosion of internet gambling advertising since Labour relaxed the gambling laws. Changes the Government wants to make would help protect the public from gambling companies that don’t meet U.K. standards, but have been allowed to profit from Labour’s lax approach to internet gambling,” said the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt's primary concern is the large number of children exposed to online gaming ads on a daily basis, and he thinks that nearly 1 million children are already addicted to gambling.
Hunt's new regulations would involve repealing large portions of The 2005 Gambling Act, which was designed to control all forms of gambling.

The Gambling Act's main objectives were:
- to prevent gambling from being a source of crime and disorder;
- to ensure that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way;
- to protect children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling.
According to the 2005 Gambling Act, all online operators must have advanced security systems to prevent young people from accessing their website.

Anti-gambling experts claim that children were affected by the excessive TV advertising of the foreign based casinos, bookmarkers, betting websites and online sports-book operators, but the Labour MP's says: “Where do 1 million children get credit cards when it’s not easy for even an adult to receive one.”

“We are the only country to permit overseas operators to advertise whilst relying on an overseas licence on issues of playing protection,” a government source said.