Dr. James Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977, an organization that works to strengthen family bonds. Recently, it has come out against Congressman Barney Frank’s (D-MA) Internet Gambling Regulation Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, HR 2267. The bill outlines a comprehensive framework to license regulate the internet gambling industry in the United States. Poker News Daily sat down with Focus on the Family’s gambling spokesperson Chad Hills to discuss the new measure.
'Problem Gambling' is the term used to describe gambling behavior, which causes disruption in any important life function, whether psychological, physical, social or vocational. This term is generally accepted to include, but is not limited to 'Pathological', a.k.a., 'Compulsive' gambling.
Poker News Daily: Explain the general response of Focus on the Family to Frank’s comprehensive internet gambling legislation.
Hills: We see gambling as something that causes addiction and it’s an industry that seeks to exploit the weaknesses of people in order to gain money. What we see from our perspective is an estimated 15 million people who are either problem or pathological gamblers in the U.S.; that’s no small number to ignore. What concerns us is that addiction is followed by bankruptcy. When someone goes bankrupt and they hit the bottom of the barrel, they get desperate. They have nothing else to lose and so turn criminal to keep feeding the addiction or to pay off their debts.
From our perspective, internet gambling represents one of the most invasive and highly addictive forms of gambling. You have availability 24/7 and most gamblers online play on three to five sites at a time. Add those things together and then put that in the privacy and secrecy of your home and you have a perfect storm for gambling addiction. If you walk into a casino, people know the addicts and kick them out. There is public accountability. Online, it’s the click of a mouse.
PND: Does Focus on the Family subscribe to the notion that regulation of an industry ultimately means better protection against underage and problem users?
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Hills: We’ve been doing a lot of research on countries conducting legal internet gambling and can pull up three to eight different headlines almost every day where one of them is being hit up for corruption or being investigated. I haven’t seen a system yet that is childproof. I haven’t seen a system that can stop white collar crime from going on.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) has effectively dropped the number of internet gambling sites in the U.S. by about 50%. The prevalence of problem gambling is three to five times higher in internet gambling than in land-based gambling. You bring 2,000 casinos into someone’s home and you’re going to have huge addiction troubles. If we legalize this, we’re only going to open Pandora’s Box.
The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) says they have one million members. That’s nice, but for every member they have, there are 15 to 20 people estimated to have a pathological or problem gambling addiction. Each of them affects another 10 to 17 people negatively. One PPA member means that we have 15 to 20 addicted folks and another 250 people affected in total. There are a small number of people that want to play poker online. There is no choice in the matter.
PND: Respond to critics who say that the UIGEA is vague and consequently places unnecessary burdens on the financial services industry.
Hills: It’s not any more of a burden than it would be to verify that someone is of a certain age to purchase something else online. The banks will have to verify that an entity is a licensed gambling industry. Right now, none of those offshore foreign entities are licensed in the U.S. These groups could be funding terrorism. All you have to do is have a couple of techies, a warehouse, and some software and you have an online casino.
PND: What about legal forms of online gambling, like state lotteries, which have experienced a blockage of funding as a result of the UIGEA?
Hills: In terms of blocking legal entities, it’s going to be a process that the industry will have to go through. Once the UIGEA is truly implemented in December, things like online lotteries will have an effective verification certificate that they can show financial institutions. Barney Frank introducing HR 2266 (Reasonable Prudence in Regulation Act) is only going to delay the process.
PND: Talk about the background of Focus on the Family for those who are not familiar with it.
Focus On The Family Gambling Addiction
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Hills: Focus on the Family is an organization that was founded by James Dobson. It is classified as a Christian ministry and we have a two-pronged approach: To strengthen and nurture families and defend them from dangerous policy. We try to preserve traditional family values and beliefs as they pertain to law, policy, and human conduct. We have different analysts who look at the incoming research, media headlines, and reports.