The Australian Senate inquiry into online poker, and whether it should be included in the bans on internet casino style games proposed by the upcoming Interactive Gaming Amendment Act, heard from interested parties last week, not all of them as supportive of excluding online poker as the Australian Online Poker Association (see previous report).
The Salvation Army spokesman made some pretty bold anti-online poker claims, alleging that the game is one of the fastest growing forms of gambling, and that people who play it are at three to four times greater risk of problem gambling than those who played at venues.
The reports do not include any substantiation of this claim, which also warns that an increase in online poker will cause in a rise in the number of problem gamblers.
The Salvation Army submission also alleged that poker is not a harmless activity, but can become a compulsive dependency, and that online poker operators “deliberately” emphasise the element of skill necessary in poker to encourage an “illusion of control, despite there being little evidence to support the idea that skill is involved in long-term success.”
The Australian Institute of Family made even harsher claims against poker, alleging that offline and online poker players have seven times the rate of gambling-related health and financial problems than regular gamblers, again apparently without substantiation.
“Regular poker players appear to be exceptionally vulnerable to problem gambling and associated harms,” it said.