MORE DETAIL ON NEVADA ONLINE GAMBLING STUDY

18 January 2008

Survey group was a thousand strong


Following on from our InfoPowa bulletin earlier today, further details of the UCLV study are now in the public domain and can be reported.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that over 96 percent of the 1 000 respondents in the survey told the UNLV's International Gaming Institute team conducting the study of Internet gambling in Nevada that they were not really interested in online gambling .

But those Nevadans who do gamble over the Internet - 3.7 percent of the sample - mostly play poker or wagered on sports, are predominately male, and are not completely comfortable with the integrity of online gaming. Nevadan online gamblers said that
their Internet gambling activity does not affect their gambling habits inside Nevada [land] casinos.

Institute director Bo Bernhard told the Nevada Gaming Control Board last week that respondents were surveyed in January 2007. Follow-up in-depth interviews were conducted throughout the year with 27 of the respondents, including 18 active online gamblers.

2007 was a turbulent year for online gambling; several company executives were detained, anti-online gambling political and legislative activity increased in Washington DC and the Neteller saga dragged on.

"It became clear that events contemporaneous with our work may have chilling effects on the patterns of online play," Bernhard is quoted as telling the Board. "This research was conducted during an interesting point in time."

The LVRJ reports that Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander said the panel wanted a better understanding of the online gaming activities of Nevada residents. Several technology companies and other parties have expressed interest over the years in potentially setting up online gambling sites in Nevada that would cater only to Nevada residents. The concept would require action by the Nevada Legislature.

Neilander and fellow board members questioned if Nevadans were in fact gambling on the Internet.

"Anecdotally, we were told the activity was going on," Neilander said. "That led to a policy question; if this is something that is going on, isn't this something we ought to regulate and tax? We felt you really can't make decisions without appropriate research."

Neilander said it is not illegal to gamble on the Internet, but it is a violation of federal law to operate a gambling site that accepts wagers from Americans.

Last Friday, the Institute presented its findings to a special joint meeting of the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission, which would write any policy regarding Internet gaming by Nevada residents.

Bernhard, who oversaw the yearlong study with assistant director Tony Lucas, cautioned regulators that respondents are not always forthcoming when being questioned about what he termed "deviant behavior." The number of Nevadans gambling online may actually be higher because respondents could have been reluctant to admit to a questionably legal activity.

Nevertheless, the number of Nevada respondents saying they had gambled online was statistically similar to the number of national respondents who participated in a 2006 online gaming survey conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based American Gaming Association.

Bernhard said those respondents that had gambled online liked the activity's low cost. Others use online gambling as a way to teach themselves about different games of chance. The survey also found that nearly nine out of 10 Nevadans who had not gambled online said they were "not at all likely" to participate in online gambling if the state licensed and regulated the activity.

Current online gamblers, Bo Bernhard said, had strong concerns about the legal status and the unregulated nature of the activity and would have more of a comfort level if Nevada regulated online gambling.

Control Board member Mark Clayton said that because the study's findings showed such a small number of gamblers wagering online, he didn't believe Nevada casino operators would undertake the effort toward setting up Internet gaming sites within Nevada borders for Nevada residents.

Bo Bernhard said the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points because of the large sampling.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa