Officials Want To Know About Online Gambling
November 4, 2015
No kidding, this is for real. This is from none other than Michel Samson. You may well recall that Michel Samson is in fact the Minister responsible for a portion of the Gaming Control Act. According to Samson this is about the province taking a good look at what is going on with online gambling. Specifically, the Minister wants to “get a better understanding of how many Nova Scotians play online poker or play online casino games.
Interestingly there was nothing said about how many Nova Scotians would actually report their online gambling activity anyway. Nevertheless, the Minister is proceeding in his data gathering quest. In this case that will show up as a province wide poll.
Samson explained the poll this way:”although the province could eventually seek to regulate online gambling, the first step is gathering the data. We need to better understand how many Nova Scotians are actually participating in online poker and other casino style games and how often. For the record, Samson did take the time to explain to reporters that the current state of affairs is such that online gambling is not regulated at all.
For the record, the Nova Scotia Provincial Lotteries and Casino Corporation which is by the way a Crown corporation is tasked with organizing the research. According to spokesperson Stacy O’Rourke , the research is all about better understanding how many Nova Scotians are participating in Internet gambling. More to the point, O’Rourke stated that without the data, “…we can’t determine if there is a problem”.
Wow. How about that? An official that finally speaks some truth about online gambling. As you might have noticed, those that are vehemently opposed to online gambling for whatever reason or perhaps for no reason at all, one frequent tactic thrown out is that online gambling leads to gambling problems.
Or does it? You see the fact of the matter is that there is no good hard data supporting either side of this accusation. To O’Rourke’s credit, she made it clear that until they look at data, there no way to determine whether or not there is a really a problem or not.
But there is a deeper, more subtle point to get here. The fact that the Nova Scotia Provincial Lotteries and Casino Corporation is taking a good hard look at what is really going on is a positive sign for the online casino industry. This is a clear sign that there is increased interest in online casino action.
