Gambling News by House of Odds

am writing to express my thanks to Mr Peter Browne for his published letter
entitled "Organised gambling will only create more poverty and crime." I
find his letter rather intriguing and needless to say I share most his
expressed views on this issue. Incidentally, on the same day Mr Hudson
George's letter ("Organised gambling can erase poverty") was published; the
BBC website published an article entitled "Britain's Streets of Debt." The
sub-header went on: "From the hidden story of the elderly and debt, to the
explosion of online gambling which is causing financial misery to thousands
and the story of the loan sharks and doorstep lenders, BBC one's Britain's
streets of debt explores five stories of individual debt. Personal debt in
the UK is over £1.1 trillion and is growing by £1 million every four
minutes."
>From the Caribbean to the UK I have has some experience of what gambling can
do to some of us. In Grenada as a child I had seen people on more than one
occasion running out of a particular gambling establishment with bloody
clothing and others chasing after them with sharp objects; in Trinidad as a
young man; someone I had known in a personal capacity died as a result of
gambling. The Union Park horse racing circuit was not too far away from
where I lived in San Fernando, so I knew a lot of the regular punters; none
of which became better off. They were always short of a dollar or two;
always living from hand to mouth. Same in Britain; some regulars even have
accounts with their local betting shops referred to as the bookies; some
people I have known even have shares in race horses. However, none of these
people are rich or well off. Most, if not all, are living yet again hand to
mouth as we say in Britain. Going back to Mr Browne's article, it is the
misery that organised gambling inflicts on families that one should be aware
of. Some of us believe in the get rich quick philosophy; others are weak and
vulnerable while most people who are hooked on gambling are addicted to it
and cannot help themselves. They borrow as much as they can from credit card
companies; families; friends and loan sharks to feed their gambling habit.
Some even get involve with drug trafficking; breaking and entering into
other people's properties. This spiral escalates to the point where it
causes family and marriage break ups; people loosing their jobs; their
homes; their friends and acquaintances and even their self respect. Too
often in Britain the Social Services; the Volunteer Services sector and the
Welfare Services (all funded by the hard pressed taxpayers) have to pick up
the pieces. Some of the most depressing aspects of this dreadfulness are
where children are involved and in the worst cases they have to be taken
into Social Care for their own welfare and safety as family life
disintegrates. In the UK a lot of thoughts are put into legislation that is
then used to regulate; control; and monitor gambling at almost all levels.
Political parties are generally very nervous about the effects gambling is
likely to have on citizens especially the poor; the weak and vulnerable.
They also work closely with and take notice of the Police Service; Probation
Service; and concerns expressed by various pressure groups. One can say the
gambling industry in the UK is regulated and closely monitored. From time to
time new legislations are passed by parliament to tighten up on what can be
seen as loop holes in existing legislations that control particular parts
the industry. They are also limitation on growth; locations; mix;
operational hours; and a gambling age limit for punters. The legislations
also give local communities the opportunity to voice their concerns through
their local Borough or District Councils who are usually the Planning and
Licensing Authority for the areas concern.

As a business; organised gambling or gambling of various forms for that
matter does provide some sort of employment; they are also spin offs to the
supply and service industries however; one must ask the question. Does the
limited employment it provides for the lucky few erase overall poverty?
In setting up business; the person or persons involve will want to know (a)
is there a market? And (b) how big is it? Then consideration is given to
growth etc.

Before sovereign states in the Caribbean consider passing legislation for
organised gambling, perhaps their governments should, like most business
people, consider (a) who is the market, i.e. who is the target? And (b)
where will the money come from?

Finally, within weeks of the British National Lotteries started operating
they were an outcry from most of the charitable organisations such as the
Red Cross; Oxfam and many others. Their complaints were the shortfall in
financial donation receipts. Apparently, most of the money some volunteers
donated to these charitable organisations was used instead to play the
lottery. You see, in most cases our income remains the same therefore if our
habits or tastes should change for what ever reason something has to give
and this is exactly what Mr Browne meant when he said "organised gambling
will only create more poverty and crime." If our income is spent on
gambling, then our standard of living and our family lifestyle is most
likely to end up in a collapsed state.

Outagamie County District Attorney Carrie Schneider is tired of rumors that
she tabled a two-year-old gambling probe to protect families members.
So she's promising to file charges in the next 30 days in the case. She says
she'll also attach whatever information she has, to prove she has nothing to
hide.
The charges stem from a 2005 Super Bowl pool at the Legacy Supper Club in
Grand Chute. Agents with the state Justice Department investigated for six
months, and then turned the case over to Schneider's office. The case
languished there, leading to rumors Schneider was trying to protect
relatives who were pool participants. She says her office was more focused
on homicide cases and felonies, not misdemeanor gambling charges.

Washington State Representative Chris Strow and his House Bill 1243, believe
that online gambling in the United States should be legal in the privacy of
your own home. In 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was
signed into law by President George Bush, which makes online gambling
conducted in the United States a Class C Felony. Chris Strow plans to change
this law after introducing House Bill 1243 to correct what he considers an
inappropriate penalty for an activity responsible adults should be allowed
to do in the privacy of their own home. Strow said, "While I do see the need
for protecting our citizens from online gambling that may be scamming
innocent victims, I do think that there is also a level of accountability,
as an adult, to do as he or she chooses in his or her own home." "Most
certainly choosing to gamble, or play a game of skill such as poker, should
not have been made a crime equivalent to possessing child pornography or
threatening the Governor," he added. Strow made a plea for state residents
to call and write to the Chairman of the House Commerce and Labor Committee,
Representative Steve Conway, to ask him to schedule a hearing for House Bill
1243.

For nearly the past year, Washington State has made it a crime to gamble
online. In fact, doing so is considered a Class C felony, with a punishment
no different than that of child molestation and drug dealing. Until now the
law has not been put into affect other than to harass one popular online
gambling affiliate webmaster residing in the state to remove all links to
internet gambling sites. That site soon plans to block out Washington State
ip addresses. Now the barbaric law is being challenged by Rep. Chris Strow,
R-Whidbey Island. "There's a certain point at which policy can be perceived
as 'nanny stateish.' I think we reached that point with last year's
legislation and I'm aiming to make amends," said Strow, who is appealing to
Washington State citizens, though he would probably like to garner support
from those outside the state as well. Strow announced his legislation, House
Bill 1243, to quash the felony charge language in last year's legislation
addressing in-home internet gambling. "My goal with this legislation is to
correct an element from last year's online gambling bill, Senate Bill 6613,
that made it a Class C Felony to gamble recreationally in one's own home if
it is done online," said Strow. "While I do see the need for protecting our
citizens from online gaming that may be scamming innocent victims, I do
think that there is also a level of accountability, as an adult, to do as he
or she chooses in his or her own home," said Strow. "Most certainly choosing
to gamble, or play a game of skill such as poker, should not have been made
a crime equivalent to possessing child pornography or threatening the
Governor." House Bill 1243 is currently awaiting a hearing in the House
Commerce and Labor Committee.

The United States government has shown a chink in their armor during their
war against online gambling. On Friday they admitted that the WTO had ruled
against them in the most recent stage of their long standing dispute with
Antigua. Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative at
the WTO, said the interim report "did not agree with the United States that
we had taken the necessary steps to comply". Antigua's representative Mark
Mendel said "America's prohibition in the provision of gambling services
from other countries violates the US commitments to the WTO". The US
government considers online gambling to be illegal, however they have
created loop holes that exclude horse racing and various state lotteries.
Antigua accused the United States of protectionism against international
online gambling companies. Antigua is a small Caribbean island that is home
to several online gambling companies. Antigua successfully argued their
case, in front of the WTO, that the United States government allows online
gambling on horse racing, but unfairly forbids international companies from
competing in their market. The final ruling on the case is expected in
March 2007. Once the final ruling is disclosed, Antigua will be able to
introduce sanctions although the US still has the right to appeal. Legal &
Trade Experts do not believe that Antiguan sanctions will help to drive
change in US policies regarding online gambling, however the European Union
could take up the cause. If the EU gets involved, Washington will begin to
listen more intently out of fear of being sanctioned by larger trading
partners. One lucky benefactor of the ruling could be David Carruthers.
Carruthers, the former CEO of BetonSports PLC, is currently on house arrest
awaiting trial in a Missouri Federal Court on money laundering and tax
evasion chargers stemming from his duties with BetonSports. BetonSports was
licensed by Antigua as an online gambling operator. Carruthers, a British
Citizen, was arrested in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport while on a layover
between Costa Rica and the UK back in July 2006. The Carruthers arrest was
one incident that clearly showed the US had no intention of complying with
the WTO ruling. Since then, the online gambling industry has been under
constant siege by the US government. In the middle of the night, the
Republican led congress tacked legislation banning online gambling financial
transactions to a "MUST PASS" Port Security Bill. In November, the
President signed UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006)
into law. UIGEA bars financial institutions from knowingly allowing online
gambling financial transactions.

The most recent blow in the US goverment's war on online gambling came this
month when the Canadian founders of NETeller were arrested on tax evasion
and money laundering charges. NETeller's e-wallet money transfer solution
was widely used by operators to take in deposits and process withdraw
requests. The arrests triggered a ripple effect with other companies such
as Citadel Commerce leaving the US market out of fear of indictment.

Many within the online gambling industry are hoping that the WTO ruling will
help pave the way for regulation in the $15 Billion dollar US market. The
big question is: When will the United States realize that prohibition does
not work?

Driving down Highway 61 from Memphis, Tennessee to Tunica, Mississippi, the
fields are flat, with occasional bursts of swampland, and cotton balls
blowing on the tar. As you edge south, the billboards grow more insistent,
offering endless variations on the notion of chance: "Best cash back!",
"Best dealers", "$10k Fridays". Follow your luck, and you end up riding
towards Mississippi's tallest building, the Gold Strike, and into the
parking lot in front of the old Vegas frontage of the Horseshoe. A vintage
car is marooned between red ropes and the foyer echoes to the sound of "96
Tears". There, I ask a security guard for directions to the historic town of
Tunica. "It's not very historic," he replies. "The old town, then?" "You're
not going to see much there," he says. "Have y'all been up to Memphis to see
all the Elvis Presley stuff?" Traditionally, the traffic along Highway 61
has gone north. Long before Bob Dylan celebrated the roving gamblers of the
road in song, Mississippi's black population was heading out towards Memphis
and Chicago in search of work and freedom, taking their music with them.
That migration spawned soul and rock 'n' roll. But today, if you keep
driving along the casino roads, out past the western facade of Sam's Town,
with its saloon and its bathhouse, and on beyond the RV park, you come to a
point where the tarmac ends in a circle. It is a junction between the
commerce of Tunica's present, and the colour of its recent past. Twenty
years ago, this area would have been nothing but fields; the view across the
levee would have been as it was when the most famous of the delta bluesmen,
Robert Johnson, lived here. The centre of the Johnson myth is the crossroads
where, in exchange for the gift of his talent, he sold his soul to the
devil. The location of this mythical gamble is understandably imprecise, and
several delta crossroads lay claim to it, but Dick Taylor, executive
director of the Tunica Museum, believes the cemetery, out where the
Crosstown Road meets the Bonny Blue Road, has as good a case as any. "If
Robert Johnson's ghost is still walking around his birthplace then he can
look at the casino lights any night," he said. "He was born right there next
to the levee at Robinsonville, and grew up right there. He would see Sam's
Town, looking right across the levee. "I have no iron-clad proof that he
sold his soul to the devil at the Crosstown cemetery but he was very well
acquainted with it, and my experience with the devil is that you don't have
to travel tremendous distances to meet him. All you have to do is express
some kind of desire to see the cloven hooves and the horns and the
pitchfork, and he'll come to you. Crosstown cemetery probably has the best
claim on being the most sincere place that he would have found the devil."

A certain pragmatism on matters of public morality has long been a feature
of life in the Mississippi delta, so it is perhaps not surprising that the
area embraced gambling with evangelistic fervour. The economic impact of
that decision, which crept though the legislature in a little-noticed
amendment to a spending bill in 1991, is as obvious as the statistics of the
"Tunica Miracle" are startling.

In 1985, when the Rev Jesse Jackson visited Sugar Ditch in the town of
Tunica, he proclaimed it a national disgrace, dubbing it "America's
Ethiopia". The mechanisation of agriculture meant that unemployment was
endemic. "Sugar Ditch was as much a mindset as a physical location," said Mr
Taylor. "It was the depths of despair that caused our citizens to say, here
we are and it's hopeless. The influx of casino money and the jobs and
opportunities and the hope that the casinos brought for some people has
broken this never-ending circle of poverty."

When the first casino, Splash, opened at Mhoon Landing in 1992, there was no
indication that gambling would transform the economy. Corporate studies had
detected no appetite for gambling in the delta, and the founders of Splash,
Rick and Ron Schilling, were unable to persuade the power companies to
supply electricity to their converted barge. (A peculiarity of Mississippi
gaming law is that the casinos must be partially built over water).

James Gravenmier, now graphic designer at Sam's Town, worked on the first
advertisements for Splash, and recalls the impact of that casino. "They
opened for about three days, then the gaming commission shut it down for a
couple of days 'cause they had so much money piled up," he said. "Great big
bales - they were putting it in stacks and tying it together. They couldn't
count it fast enough. They made more money than they had any dreams of. They
made $850,000 (£430,000) just on the admission. Ten bucks a head. They made
$150m in their first year."

Mr Taylor added: "People would wait at the Splash for up to eight hours for
the opportunity to come onboard. There was one lady whose job was to welcome
you, and click a little clicker, and when it got to 800 she said, 'Not until
somebody leaves'. Now they did keep you well-oiled while you waited, so it
wasn't a terrible ordeal, but it was a long wait."

The success of Splash alerted the gaming corporations to an untapped market,
and a gambling gold rush followed. The price of land rocketed. "They started
throwing money in here and they went to these landowners and offered 'em so
much money for these cotton fields that they couldn't say no," said Mr
Gravenmier.

Not all the casinos have been successful. Some have closed, and some have
been re-branded. Circus-Circus came and went, and Fitzgerald's is currently
moving upscale with the slogan "gambling just got better".

There are nine supercasinos in Tunica, and each makes a pitch for a
particular market. The ideal visitor to Sam's Town is said to be a cowboy
boot-wearing, Nascar racing fan. Hollywood offers a kind of Hard Rock
proximity to fame; the Batmobile and the DeLorean car from Back to the
Future are parked by the one-armed bandits. The Horseshoe has a blues museum
where you can admire Neil Sedaka's 1998 microphone and one of Albert King's
favourite hats (circa 1986).

No one visits a casino to admire the scenery but the numbers are impressive.
Webster Franklin was president of the local Chamber of Commerce during the
early years of the "Tunica Miracle", and is now president and CEO of the
Convention and Visitors' Bureau. Under his watch, Tunica has gone from being
the poorest county in the US to the country's third biggest gaming centre,
behind Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

"No one ever dreamed, when Splash opened, that 15 years later, this would be
a $1.3bn-a-year industry employing 16,000 people. That's more people than
live in Tunica County. We only have a residential population of 10,000, and
a workforce of 5,500 that live in the county."

Before the casinos came, there wasn't a stop-light in Tunica County. Now
there is a new Interstate, I-69, and the two-lane highways have been
broadened to four. There are new schools, sewers and drains, and the airport
has been expanded.

The casinos pay a 12 per cent gaming tax, with 8 per cent going to the
state, and 4 per cent to the local economy. That 4 per cent comes to $45-50m
a year. In an attempt to diversify the economy, a 2,200-acre site has been
prepared, so the area can tender for industrial projects, such as a proposed
Rolls-Royce aeroplane engine factory. "Never in our wildest dreams would we
have thought of putting Tunica and Rolls-Royce in the same sentence had it
not been for the opportunities created by gaming," said Mr Franklin.

The poverty of Tunica County overrode moral and religious objections to
gambling in a way that was not replicated in neighbouring counties. Clearly,
the benefits have not been shared equally. Despite the casino jobs,
unemployment is still about 10 per cent, and there are some alarming
statistics, such as a 1,600 per cent increase in court cases in the first
five years of legal gambling. Mr Franklin said the crime figures can be
explained by the huge increase in visitor numbers. "I live in the town of
Tunica," he said. "I rarely lock my doors. There is little to no crime.
Sure, the bicycles get stolen, just like any other place."

Mr Taylor said the benefits outweighed the bad side-effects. "Having been
raised as a Baptist, my imagination led me to believe that this was the
worst thing that could happen," he said. "In my mind I could see the bars
and the liquor stores, tattoo parlours and topless dancing ladies, and all
of the vices I associated with gambling and organised crime. None of that
has materialised. We laughed before the casinos came and said if we could
have organised crime at least we'd have some organisation. But that didn't
occur.

"I'm sure there are people that have become habitual gamblers, and perhaps
are addicted to it - and that would weigh on the bad side. But the fact that
we have allowed most of the population to be employable, and we have been
able to improve the basic lot of all of our citizens makes it more good than
bad."

These arguments will be welcomed by the British government as it prepares to
nominate a site for the first British supercasino. But Mr Franklin added a
note of caution. One supercasino isn't enough, he says. Success requires
competition.

"If we had said one casino, or even two or three, could locate here, you
would not have seen the infrastructure improvements, the four-laning of the
roads, the new buildings, the factory-outlet shopping, the golf courses, the
entertainment facilities. You would not have seen an area that has grown
from cotton fields to what it is today."

What would Robert Johnson make of it? In life, he was a gambler. In death,
he has three graves, none of which is guaranteed to house his bones. The
odds are, he isn't spinning in any of them.

Odds are this year's table gambling bill will be introduced Tuesday in the
West Virginia House of Delegates. "We've got one pretty well put together,"
said Delegate Randy Swartzmiller, D-Hancock, who is expected to introduce
the bill. "It's not out there together yet. We're putting together the final
details.
"I'd say Tuesday is pretty accurate." The table gambling bill, if passed,
would allow officials at the state's four racetracks to petition their
respective county commissions and ask that a referendum to allow table
gambling be placed before the county's voters. The racetracks are located in
Ohio, Hancock, Kanawha and Jefferson counties. This will be the third
consecutive year that table gambling legislation will be introduced in the
West Virginia Legislature, but neither of the first two bills ever came up
for discussion or vote on the House floor. A table gambling bill did pass
the West Virginia Senate in 2005. The 2007 legislation contains some changes
from past table gambling bills. For starters, the amount of state tax placed
on gross proceeds generated by table gambling has been doubled - from 12
percent to 24 percent. It is expected this rate could be as raised to as
high as 34 percent while in the House Finance Committee. Secondly, if a
table gambling referendum were to be approved by a county's voters, the same
voters could petition again five years later to recall the measure if they
find table gambling hasn't been beneficial to their community. What remains
the same in the bill is just who gets to vote on a table gambling
referendum. Opponents to table gambling had asked that any measure
pertaining to the issue go before all voters in the state - not just those
living in counties where the racetracks are located.
The proposed bill continues to carry the provision that a table gambling
vote be by local referendum - one voted on by residents in a specific
county.

"There's been a lot of behind the scenes work," Swartzmiller said.
"Everybody has had a seat at the table to discuss their concerns."

He believes the majority of those in the state think those in racetrack
counties should have the right to decide whether there is table gambling in
their community.

The allure of gambling calls out to Matthew Bowles-Roth wherever he goes.
When he drives on the freeway, casino billboards entice him with riches.
When he buys cigarettes at the convenience store, lottery tickets shine
under the glass counter. When he flips through TV channels, guys his age
appear in high-stakes poker tournaments, beaming like movie stars. Each
time, Matthew pauses. He can't take that path again. He forces himself to
remember what it was like when he did: Lying. Stealing. Dropping out of
college. "There's tons of things that I just wish I had never done," he says
now, four years later. At 22, Matthew has experienced the grip of gambling
in a way most people never will. In just three years, he went from someone
who had never gambled to compulsive gambler to recovering addict. He is part
of an age group that is drawing increasing concern from gambling-addiction
counselors, government regulators and college administrators.
Card playing and Internet gambling have increased among zcollege-age men in
recent years, according to one study in Pennsylvania. And many of them
learned the game in high school. In many cases, "parents are actually
strongly encouraging their kids to play poker," said Jeff Derevensky,
co-director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and
High-Risk Behaviors at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. "They would
prefer them to be in their basements playing poker than doing something
'more dangerous' like drinking and doing drugs." Research is scant about
college-age gambling participation over time. And studies conflict on the
question of whether young people are more susceptible to become problem
gamblers - some studies say yes, others cast doubt on that premise. Still,
researchers are concerned that gambling accessibility could lead to more
problems.

Teenage gambling is a growing problem in Southwestern Ontario, a local
expert says. Though she didn't have hard numbers available, Bonnie Orvidas
said it's clear to everyone involved more young people are seeking addiction
treatment services. "It's in the last two to three years that we have been
hearing from young people. Most of them are males," said Orvidas, the
problem gambling services program co-ordinator for Addiction Services of
Thames Valley. A study released yesterday found that one-third of Ontario
teens aged 15 to 17 are gambling. But other statistics pulled together from
across the province in recent years show that as many as 80 per cent of
teens between the ages of 12 and 17 gambled for money and that young people
spend more time gambling than drinking, smoking or doing illicit drugs. "I
think it's about accessibility for one thing. If you look around
Southwestern Ontario, there are a lot of opportunities to gamble," Orvidas
said. Teens who gamble, even casually, agree there are plenty of avenues. "I
do quite a bit of it," said 16-year-old Johnny Haskett of London, who was
hanging out at the Teen Annex at the London Central Library. His biggest
loss was losing his pet rat in a bet, he said. Haskett said he is no good at
cards, so his gambling involves placing bets with his friends or his
friends' parents on sporting events. Like Haskett, 18-year-old Jerry Shaw
said he bets with his friends "on a weekly basis" and he belongs to a
fantasy basketball league. "Me and my buddies are too young to get into the
casinos," so they find other ways to gamble, he said. "I make a lot. Money's
cool." Shaw said he doesn't have any debts, but he sometimes uses the money
he makes to pay bills. Yesterday's study by the Responsible Gambling Council
also noted that one in five teens gamble because they need money. "What that
says to me is that they have fallen into that cognitive distortion which
problem gamblers have believing that they can make money from gambling,"
Orvidas said. Because of the increase in young people seeking treatment
locally, Orvidas's organization began offering specialized youth services
about three years ago. "I think the young people feel very comfortable when
they come here," said Orvidas, who added that their youngest client to date
was 15. She said gambling starts younger than that for some.

"We've seen some people here who have been gambling since they were the age
of 10 or 12."

Orvidas also said the problem of illegal gambling is escalating in this
region.

"For every $100 spent on legal gambling, $142 is spent on illegal gambling.
The demographic there would be a lot of young men."

Reflecting the findings of the Responsible Gambling Council study, teens in
the Thames Valley area mainly play hold 'em poker and other online gambling
games, Orvidas said.

"Kids can go online and gamble without having to provide any ID," she said.
"It's so accessible with computers at home."

Members of the Organized Crime Section, Illegal Gambling Unit with the
assistance of Windsor Police Service executed a Criminal Code search warrant
at Sai Gon Billiards located at 922 and 926 Wyandotte St. W. in the City of
Windsor on the 24th of Jan 2007. As a result, a number of individuals have
been charged with illegal gambling offences. Acting on a Crime Stoppers tip
regarding illegal Video Gambling Machines, an investigation was commenced by
the Illegal Gambling Unit West team. The investigation confirmed the
existence of the machines where members of the public would attend to play
games of chance. This location was seeking to gain monetarily from the
gambling activity. The OPP Organized Crime Section, Illegal Gambling Unit is
in partnership with eight other police services in Ontario including London,
Toronto, Niagara, Peel, York, Windsor, Hamilton and Ottawa. The partnership
is responsible for the investigation of province-wide illegal gambling
investigations pertaining to Part VII of the Criminal Code, with an emphasis
on Organized Crime.

The historic ban on betting in pubs could be swept away after ministers
announced plans for a gambling free-for-all. Pubs, bars and clubs will be
allowed to stage poker games without a gaming licence. The proposal was
condemned as an "atrocious" encouragement to problem gambling. Experts said
the mix of drinking and betting would be disastrous. Golf clubs, political
parties and working men's clubs will also be able to host betting events in
what amounts to the most radical overhaul of drinking and gambling for four
decades. Under plans outlined by Sports Minister Richard Caborn yesterday,
gamblers will be allowed to join low-stakes poker games, paying £5 to join a
poker or cribbage tournament in pubs and up to £10 in private members'
clubs. MPs claimed the new rules could not possibly be policed effectively,
opening the door to high stakes gambling on the High Street and the prospect
of drunken players losing money long into the night.
Landlords will be allowed to offer poker prizes worth up to £100 a night and
up to £500 a week as long as they do not take a cut of the winnings or
charge gamblers to play. Private members' clubs can offer tournaments paying
£200 a night and up to £1,000 a week. That means pubs could stage a
tournament where 20 people pay £5 to enter, or 100 people pay £1 to enter on
five nights of the week. Crucially, clubs and bars will no longer have to
apply for a formal licence to stage gambling events as they do at present.
Landlords who allow high stakes gaming could be stripped of the right to
host poker tournaments - but would not face the loss of their liquor
licence. Experts expressed dismay at Labour's determination to press ahead
with the liberalisation of the gaming laws and combine them with longer
drinking hours, which have already been blamed for a rise in alcohol-related
violence. "It's appalling, but it is completely in line with everything this
government have been doing," said Dr Emanuel Moran, adviser on pathological
gambling to the Royal College of Psychiatrists. "There is a tremendous
amount of evidence indicating that alcohol interferes with people's
judgment. The combination of alcohol and gambling is liable to be
disastrous." Dr Moran, who helped set up Gamblers Anonymous, added: "The
stakes may be low but people can easily accumulate tremendous debts and then
chase their losses. There is not going to be a council official monitoring
every game."

Tory culture spokesman Hugo Swire warned that the controls on pub gambling
would be too lax. The only body policing the regulations will be the already
overworked local licensing authorities.

"There is no way landlords will be able to control the amounts staked and in
practice these limits will be totally ignored," he said.

Under the plans, which could come into force in September, pubs and clubs
will be allowed to offer bingo but the total prize money that on offer will
be limited for the first time to £2,000 a week.

Casino games which involve a banker or croupier, such as pontoon, blackjack
and roulette, will still be banned. Each pub will still be allowed to have
two slot machines taking stakes of up to 50p and paying out jackpots of up
to £35.

The changes were made after lobbying by the pub industry, which believes the
pull of poker will bring in more customers.

Mr Caborn said: "These proposals set out a comprehensive set of rules
governing gaming in pubs and clubs that will keep it fair, crime-free and
ensure children and the vulnerable are protected.

"Many people have enjoyed low stakes games like bingo, cribbage and dominoes
in clubs and pubs for decades and there is no evidence of an increase in
problem gambling or crime as a result. But we now need clearer rules and
limits on stakes and prizes to keep it that way."

Internet gambling has been on a roller coaster ride since the Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed back in October. The Neteller
arrests last week and the following pull outs of all major third party
billing companies has seriously damaged the $12b a year industry. The roller
coaster ride got another twist as a result of the report that follows. The
United States has suffered a new setback in a four-year-old legal battle
with Antigua and Barbuda over U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling, a U.S.
trade official said on Thursday. At issue is an April 2005 World Trade
Organisation ruling against U.S. prohibitions on online horse race betting.
Since then, the U.S. Congress has passed additional legislation to ban
betting over the Internet. Gretchen Hamel, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade
Representative's office, confirmed press reports that a WTO panel "did not
agree with the United States that we had taken the necessary steps to
comply" with that ruling. At the same time, Hamel downplayed the decision
contained in a preliminary, confidential report to the two parties. "The
panel's findings issued today involve a narrow issue of federal law" and the
United States will have opportunity to submit comments to the WTO before it
issues its final, public report in March, Hamel said. "Nothing in the
panel's interim report undermines the broad, favourable results that the
United States obtained from the WTO in April 2005," she said.
The issue is a touchy one for the Bush administration, which supports free
trade but whose conservative allies in Congress pushed through a bill late
last year to ban most forms of Internet gambling. Gretchen Hamel, a
spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, confirmed press
reports that a WTO panel "did not agree with the United States that we had
taken the necessary steps to comply" with that ruling. At the same time,
Hamel downplayed the decision contained in a preliminary, confidential
report to the two parties. "The panel's findings issued today involve a
narrow issue of federal law" and the United States will have opportunity to
submit comments to the WTO before it issues its final, public report in
March, Hamel said. "Nothing in the panel's interim report undermines the
broad, favourable results that the United States obtained from the WTO in
April 2005," she said.

The issue is a touchy one for the Bush administration, which supports free
trade but whose conservative allies in Congress pushed through a bill late
last year to ban most forms of Internet gambling.

Antigua and Barbuda, with few natural resources, has sought to build up an
Internet gambling industry to provide jobs to replace those in its declining
tourist industry.

It argued in a case first brought to the WTO in 2003 that U.S. laws barring
the placing of bets across states lines by electronic means violated WTO
rules.

An April 2005 ruling by the WTO's Appellate Body, which both sides claimed
as vindication, focussed on the narrower issue of horse racing, saying that
foreign betting operators appeared to suffer discrimination.

Antigua and Barbuda complained the United States had not complied with the
decision and the WTO agreed in July 2006 to look into the matter, resulting
in the ruling on Thursday.

The United States will decide after the final panel decision ruling in March
whether to appeal.

The Bush administration may not have to ask Congress to pass new legislation
in any case, Hamel said.

"The panel report clarifies that compliance does not necessarily require new
legislation, but could instead involve other steps, such as administrative
or judicial action," she said.

The son of a deceased West Virginia mobster pleaded guilty in federal court
to playing a role in a multimillion-dollar bookmaker ring. Christopher
Hankish, 44, of Scott Township, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of
conspiracy to conduct an illegal gambling business, federal prosecutors
said. Hankish is the son of Paul Hankish, a Wheeling, W.Va., native who died
in prison in 1998 while serving time for a racketeering and gambling
conviction. Investigators with the Pennsylvania State Police and state
Attorney General's Office said they came across Christopher Hankish while
looking into gambling activity involving former video poker kingpin John
Conley. Prosecutors said Hankish participated in a sports betting gambling
business run by Conley. They said Hankish recruited bettors for Conley's
organization, accepted bets on behalf of the organization and arranged for
collecting debts. According to prosecutors, a wire tap by the state Attorney
General's office and state police captured several telephone calls between
Conley and Hankish in which they discussed various aspects of the gambling
operation. Conley has not been charged, but was sentenced in May to four
years in federal prison for violating his probation by placing sports bets
over the phone last year. He had been released in January 2004 after serving
nine years in prison on a gambling conviction.

Macau may have dethroned the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest casino
center, according to figures available Wednesday that show the Chinese
territory's gambling revenue jumped 22 percent to $6.95 billion last year.
The former Portuguese enclave has been booming since the government busted
up a casino monopoly three years ago and began welcoming U.S. gaming
powerhouses like Las Vegas Sands, MGM Mirage and Wynn Resorts. The U.S.
companies have been furiously building mega casino and resort projects in
the tiny city - less than one-sixth the size of Washington, D.C. - on
China's southeastern coast. Key to Macau's success will be luring the masses
of high rollers from mainland China, who are growing richer and tend to bet
more at the casino tables than Americans do in Las Vegas. About 3 billion
people - half the world's population - in Asia can get to the city within
five hours by plane, the Sands company says.
The Las Vegas Strip has yet to announce its full-year revenue figures for
2006, but it would have to bring in nearly $1 billion in December alone to
beat Macau's figure, which was posted with no fanfare on the Web site of its
Gaming and Inspection Coordination Bureau. The Las Vegas Strip has said for
the 11 months through November, revenue came to $6.08 billion. If December's
revenue is the same as it was the previous year, the annual total would hit
about $6.57 billion - just behind Macau. Last year, Macau's gambling revenue
totaled 55.88 billion patacas, or $6.95 billion, compared to 45.80 billion
patacas in 2005, the gaming bureau's Web site said. The figure includes
revenue from casinos, lotteries and dog and horse racing. Still, Macau lags
far behind the entire state of Nevada, which raked in $10.66 billion in
2005, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas.

A report by the group of MPs has suggested that if the games become
classified as lotteries, they could be forced to give 20% of sales to good
causes.
MPs are very clear on what they would like to see happen in the future,
saying: "We believe that call-TV quiz shows generally look and feel like
gambling. It seems to us that call-TV quiz shows should constitute gaming
under the Gambling Act 2005, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
and the Gambling Commission should consider this as a matter of urgency." Up
to 1m people a night watch gaming shows, call a premium rate number and
answer a question in the hope of winning sums up to £100,000. The channels
have been criticised for charging 75p for calls from a landline and even
more from a mobile. MPs have suggested that quiz shows should get
third-party approval on all questions or puzzles before broadcast. They also
suggest that there should be an increased transparency about the chances
callers have of getting through to the studio, which is purely a matter of
luck. The committee suggested showing the odds of getting on air should be
shown clearly onscreen and that Icstis, the premium line regulator, should
make broadcasters clearly show how much it is to call the quiz number.
ITV Play was rapped recently for making answers too obscure for viewers to
guess. Ofcom recently ruled that 'Quizmania' was in breach of broadcasting
rules when viewers complained that the answer to the question "name
something you would you find in a woman's handbag" was too obscure. Answers
included rawlplugs and a balaclava. ITV Play looks set to make £20m this
year through quiz show division ITV Play, which runs shows such as 'The
Mint'. Odds of getting through to the studio are understood to be one in
400.

More than one-third of Ontario teens who participated in the first-ever
study to examine the gambling habits of students aged 15 to 17 are already
gambling, and their ranks will likely double by the time they're 20, the
study's authors say. The study, to be released Thursday, was conducted by
the Responsible Gambling Council, an independent, non-profit organization
dedicated to the prevention of problem gambling. Of the 2,140 teens
surveyed, 34.9 per cent said they're already gambling. Of those, 40 per cent
said poker is their game of choice, while another 36 per cent admitted to
regularly buying raffle tickets, including scratch-and-win lottery tickets.
Sports betting was next at 23 per cent, followed by playing dice at 15 per
cent and online gambling at 10 per cent. Poker is the most popular form of
gambling because of its accessibility, ease of play and recent explosion in
popularity, said Jon Kelly, chief executive of the council, which has
programs funded by the Ontario government. "It's relatively easy to learn,
you could play it at home, you can play it with your friends, you can play
it online, you can watch it on TV . . . so access is an important feature as
well," Kelly said. While the majority of teens surveyed cited entertainment
as their main reason for gambling, 20.7 per cent said they did it because
they needed the money, and 15.3 per cent said it was to win back cash they
had already lost. Thirteen per cent of teens who play poker admitted they
spend more money than they can afford on gambling. Of those respondents who
admitted to gambling, 3.9 per cent said they're already experiencing
gambling problems. That number jumps to 6.9 per cent in the case of gamblers
aged 18 to 24, Kelly said. "When we look at this younger group, then, and
see that more than one-third are gambling, we know that that number's going
to double, that's it's going to be at least two-thirds in three years." The
council is staging a play called "House of Cards" in schools across Ontario
in an effort to educate teens about the perils of gambling. The play is
about a university student who develops a gambling problem while playing
online poker. Two outspoken critics of the gambling industry said Wednesday
it's time for governments and industry alike to better protect consumers and
shield vulnerable youth from the tempting lure of making a quick buck on
games of chance.

Phyllis Vineberg's son Trevor, 25, committed suicide in 1995 following years
of being addicted to video lottery terminals or VLTs.

"It's like a smoker who's hooked on nicotine or you give somebody crack
cocaine: they're going to get hooked," she said. "We didn't understand that,
we didn't have the information and parents today don't have the information
either. They're totally clueless."

"You just have to stand at a lottery booth today and you see people buying
tickets with their kids and they think it's just a game."

Consumer advocate Sol Boxenbaum, who has spent 12 years as a gambling
addiction counsellor in Montreal, said the youngest client he ever treated
was 20 years old. An increase in youth gambling, he said, could signal the
start of a troubling trend.

"Normally, compulsive gamblers don't look for help until they've completely
bottomed out, and young people don't bottom out because they come home to
where rent is paid . . . supper's on the table," Boxenbaum said.

"But it carries forth into later years, when they're married and they get
all the responsibilities, that they end up having to come for help."

The onus should be on the industry, not the underage gambler, to keep those
at risk out of their facilities, he added.

"The responsibility is for them to keep minors out of the casinos, to keep
minors off of slot machines and to have proper self-exclusion programs so
that people that begin to have a problem can be barred from an
establishment."

Lotteries are the biggest source of gambling revenue for the Ontario
government, outpacing casinos and slot machines at racetracks.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation says it sold $2.3 billion in
lottery tickets and instant scratch games in 2004-05.

The province's four commercial casinos pulled in almost $1.6 billion in
revenues in the last fiscal year, while charity casinos and slot machines at
racetracks earned $1.9 billion.

Both Vineberg and Boxenbaum are part of a recently-launched complaint before
the federal Competition Bureau that electronic gaming machines are designed
to entice gamblers into risking too much of their money.

Net revenue from lotteries, VLT's and casion increased from $2.7 billion in
1992 to $11.3 billion in 2002, a growth rate of more than 400 per cent,
according to a 2003 Statistics Canada report.

Members of the Organized Crime Section, Illegal Gambling Unit with the
assistance of Windsor Police Service executed a Criminal Code search warrant
at Sai Gon Billiards located at 922 and 926 Wyandotte St. W. in the City of
Windsor on the 24th of Jan 2007. As a result, a number of individuals have
been charged with illegal gambling offences. Acting on a Crime Stoppers tip
regarding illegal Video Gambling Machines, an investigation was commenced by
the Illegal Gambling Unit West team. The investigation confirmed the
existence of the machines where members of the public would attend to play
games of chance. This location was seeking to gain monetarily from the
gambling activity. The OPP Organized Crime Section, Illegal Gambling Unit is
in partnership with eight other police services in Ontario including London,
Toronto, Niagara, Peel, York, Windsor, Hamilton and Ottawa. The partnership
is responsible for the investigation of province-wide illegal gambling
investigations pertaining to Part VII of the Criminal Code, with an emphasis
on Organized Crime.

Massillon travel agent Roger Budd was sentenced to another 60 days in jail
Wednesday by Common Pleas Judge John Haas, who also suspended a four-year
prison term. Budd, accused of bilking area residents out of money they paid
for trips to Las Vegas, has already served five months behind bars. Haas
also ordered Budd to get a job immediately upon his release from jail and to
keep it so he can start making restitution payments to his victims. That
could take quite a while, even if Budd devotes all his paychecks to that
effort. He owes $113,000 in restitution, according to Fred Scott, the
assistant prosecutor who brought the case against Budd. And Haas will be
keeping a close eye on Budd, who will become part of the judge's Say Hey
program. Selected non-violent criminals are chosen for regular visits with
Haas on a weekly or monthly basis so he can closely monitor their progress.
The idea is to have a quick chat, to Say Hey, and let them know that someone
personally cares. Haas said he started Say Hey several years ago when the
Stark County Jail and the Regional Correction Facility were overcrowded.
"Sometimes it doesn't work," Haas said, "but the success rate is pretty
good." Haas said his goal in sentencing was to balance the punishment with
what is best for the victims. About half of Budd's victims wanted him to go
away for a long time while the other half favored restitution. "There's no
way to make everyone happy with the sentencing in this case," Haas said.
Haas also noted by suspending four years on the condition of good behavior,
he has leverage to keep Budd on the straight and narrow. That means no
gambling, drugs or alcohol. The fact Budd finally admitted to having a
gambling problem also helped him, said John Frieg, his attorney. "Only the
house wins in Vegas," Frieg said. "Vegas is an entertainment destination.
You have to determine how much you can lose before you go and then walk away
once you hit that figure. Roger couldn't do that. In his mind, he kept
believing he could win and get everyone back their money." Frieg said most
people on Budd's trips had a good time and noted he went on a trip himself.
"Most people still like Roger and he has strong ties to the community," he
said. "I believe he'll try to pay most people back.

Malibu homeowner John Lefebvre, a Canadian national, was released on a $5
million U.S Bond following his arrest last week on charges of allegedly
laundering billions of dollars in illegal online gambling proceeds. Canadian
Stephen Lawrence was also released on $5 million bail. The two are former
directors of NETeller, a company that transfers money globally for a fee.
Lefebvre and Lawrence are accused of using the Internet payment services
company to facilitate the transfer of billions of dollars of illegal
gambling proceeds from the United States to Internet gambling companies
overseas. A former lawyer, Lefebvre launched NETeller in 2000, which was
essentially a Web database that functioned as the middleman between
companies operating online gambling casinos and offshore bank accounts.
The U.S. Attorney's office stated in a press release that, "According to
NETeller's 2005 annual report, Lawrence and Lefebvre, through NETeller,
provided payment services to more than 80 percent of worldwide gaming
merchants." Lefebvre, according to the U.S. Attorney's office, served as
president of NETeller from 2000 to 2002, and was a member of the Board of
Directors until approximately December 2005. Reuters reported last week that
the company closed its U.S. Internet gambling services on Thursday, causing
it to lose more than 65 percent of its business. Shares in NETeller had
fallen by 60 percent since September, following the passage of the Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, and the arrests of two British executives
from companies that were involved in online casinos. The anti-online
gambling law makes it illegal for banks, credit card companies and online
payment systems to process payment to online gambling companies. Nearly $8
billion in market value of shares in publicly traded companies such
PartyGaming and Sportingbet were wiped out following the law's passage.
The U.S. Attorney's office reported that in 2005, NETeller processed more
than $7.3 billion in financial transactions, and that, according to reports
issued by NETeller, 95 percent of its revenue came from money transfers
involving Internet gambling companies. In the first half of 2006, NETeller
processed $5.1 billion in financial transactions, prosecutors said. As
charged in the U.S. Attorney's complaint, 85 percent of the company's
revenue from that period came from gamblers in North America, and
approximately 75 percent of its North American revenue was generated in the
United States.

"Internet gambling is a multibillion-dollar industry," stated FBI Assistant
Director Mark Mershon. "A significant portion of that is the illegal
handling of Americans' bets with offshore gaming companies, which amounts to
a colossal criminal enterprise masquerading as legitimate business. There is
ample indication these defendants knew the American market for their
services was illegal. The FBI is adamant about shutting off the flow of
illegal cash."

Since the arrest of two other former online gambling company executives in
September, including Sportingbet chairman, Peter Dicks, most online gambling
executives have been avoiding the U.S. However, this did not deter Lefebvre,
who was arrested at his Malibu home last Tuesday, from staying away from the
States.

In an Oct. 14, 2005 story from the University of Calgary campus newspaper,
Lefebvre's alma mater, he is described as a "man embodying the spirit of a
generation." Lefebvre donated $1.2 million to its fine arts faculty in 2005.

The article goes on to tell the rise, fall and then rise again of Lefebvre.
According to the On Campus Weekly story, Lefebvre was "a lawyer by trade and
a frustrated musician by passion."

Lefebvre's father died when he was 3, writes Tom Maloney, and his mother
raised he and his two siblings while returning to school and earning an
education degree and a master's in counseling. After graduating law school,
Lefebvre ended up running a storefront law clinic and then eventually worked
from home.

"One of the reasons I didn't get dragged into the downtown, upper-crust,
law-circle things is, I never really did concede to working the long hours,
as much as I could have or maybe should have," he is quoted in the U of C
newspaper. "It was always more compelling for me to get home to see my
daughter."

Facing a midlife crisis in his '40s, he quit his job as lawyer and then
begged in the train stations of Calgary for change to buy food, according to
the campus newspaper. He ended returning to legal work to pay back friends
and then met up with a former client, who later became chairman of NETeller,
Stephen Lawrence. Lawrence was operating an online casino in Costa Rica, and
wanted a more efficient money transfer system. Lefebvre worked with a
computer programmer and built NETeller. The company gained a percentage off
each transaction from the casinos, smaller than what the casinos had to pay
credit card companies, and it provided better security against fraud.

Two years ago the company, based on the Isle of Man in the U.K. and listed
on the London Stock Exchange, had a user base of two million customers
worldwide and 1,700 merchant clients, according the U of C newspaper.

Trading of NETeller's shares was temporarily suspended on Jan. 16, following
the arrests of Lefebvre and Lawrence. A press release from the company was
listed on the London Stock Exchange stating that other than as shareholders,
neither of the two have any current position or connection to NETeller.

A proposed Spokane Tribe of Indians gambling agreement is unfair to other
tribes and represents a major expansion of tribal gaming, skeptical
legislators said.
The Eastern Washington tribe is asking the state and federal government to
end more than a decade of legal challenges and approve the gaming compact,
which would make the Spokanes one of the state's largest casino operators.
Tribal secretary Gerald Nicodemus told lawmakers Tuesday the agreement
allowing as many as 4,700 slot-style machines at five sites would be a good
deal for both the tribe and region. "This compact will be our best chance to
impact our tribe's future in a significant and historic way," Nicodemus told
House and Senate members on Tuesday. The state gambling commission has
scheduled a public hearing on the proposed agreement Feb. 9 in Olympia. The
compact needs approval of the commission, Gov. Chris Gregoire and the
federal government. Lawmakers said the proposal would be a dramatic
expansion of the $1.2 billion Indian gaming industry in the state. The
Spokane tribe is the only gambling tribe that has not negotiated an
agreement with the state. State and federal officials contend Nevada-style
slot machines in the tribe's casinos are illegal. The proposed compact
"rewards illegal operations and encourages a tremendous expansion of
gambling," Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, said. Sen. Margarita Prentice,
D-Renton, predicted that many of the 27 tribes that have gaming compacts
with the state will oppose the Spokanes' compact. "I think they'll be really
angry, because they are now," she said.
The plan is a sign of a "new and positive relationship" between the state
and tribe, Nicodemus said. Casino revenues would pay for better education
for the tribe's children, better health care for its elders and a
diversified reservation economy, he said. Current law allows each tribe to
have a total of 675 slot-style machines. Larger tribes can increase that
number by leasing machines from smaller tribes. The proposed Spokane Tribe
compact, in the works since 2005, would allow as many as 4,700 machines and
includes benefits other tribes haven't gotten in their negotiations. It
would allow cash-fed machines, instead of requiring players to use paper
tickets or plastic cards. It also would allow high-stakes betting at limits
set by the tribe. "I can hear it coming: 'Look what you did for the
Spokanes,'" said Sen. Jim Clements, R-Selah, whose district includes the
Yakama Tribe. Prentice said she doesn't like the high-rollers provision.

"It's still real troublesome that you can leapfrog over (the other tribes)
and have a real juicy plum that other tribes don't have," she said.

In 2004, state voters overwhelmingly rejected an initiative that would have
allowed slot-style machines in nontribal businesses like card rooms and
bars.

The current proposal is the second try at a compact between the state and
tribe in recent years.

In 2005, negotiators reached an agreement that would have allowed up to
7,500 machines, including 4,000 in a single casino. But Gregoire ordered
that version scrapped after some lawmakers balked.

Malaysian authorities are working to wipe out gambling dens that offer
illegal video game and slot machines, a top police official said Wednesday,
underscoring efforts to boost public confidence in the police. Christopher
Wan, the federal criminal investigations police director, has personally led
high-profile raids on unlicensed gambling outlets in recent weeks, cracking
down on one of the most lucrative businesses for Malaysia's criminal
syndicates. "The target is to shut down all outlets by the end of March,"
Wan told The Associated Press. Wan said there are no official estimates of
how many outlets exist, but public tip-offs indicate that operators of
numerous gambling parlors have recently ceased their activities for fear of
being caught in the police clampdown. "We believe there is a domino effect,"
Wan said. "There could have been thousands of outlets at one point, but we
are confident that the number is now falling to a low level." The raids were
motivated by increasing complaints that illegal gambling was causing people
to become addicted to gambling and amass large debts, Wan said, adding that
many outlets also lure children and encourage them to skip school. "The
problem is a social menace because it is breaking up families," Wan said.
Public support for the crackdown has been substantial because it has assured
people that the police force can effectively perform its duties, Wan said.
The image of Malaysia's police has been tainted over the past decade by
allegations of corruption, abuse of power, poor service and delays in
investigating cases. One recent raid led to the seizure of nearly 250
gambling machines from one location that was within walking distance of the
town's police station. Eleven men were arrested, while town officials were
reprimanded for not having closed down the outlet earlier. Gambling is
forbidden for ethnic Malay Muslims, who comprise nearly two-thirds of
Malaysia's population. It is legal for the ethnic Chinese and Indian
minorities, mainly in the forms of lotteries, horse racing and a legal
casino that is hugely popular with ethnic Chinese.

Call-in quiz television shows border on the fraudulent and should be
reclassified as gambling, MPs have concluded. The Culture, Media and Sport
Select Committee condemned the "unscrupulous practices" of some of the quiz
shows, which have been criticised for misleading viewers. Up to a million
people a night watch shows in which presenters invite viewers to call a
premium-rate number and answer a simple question for rewards of up to
£100,000. The revenue raised from the calls is considerable, with ITV set to
make £20 million in profit this year from its quiz show division, ITV Play.
The committee was told of allegations of shabby practices by producers and
broadcasters, including suggestions that call handling procedures had, in
the past, been manipulated to deny callers a chance to answer. In one
episode of The Mint, an ITV1 show, 400,000 callers phoned over four hours,
but only one in 400 had a chance of getting through. Viewers have also
complained about overly cryptic questions. Ofcom, which is investigating the
shows, recently ruled that Quizmania, on ITV Play, was in breach of the
broadcasting code for posing a question about items commonly found in a
women's handbag. Answers included a balaclava and Rawlplugs. The committee
report, issued today, is expected to conclude that "any practice of
misleading viewers about call volumes or of blocking calls would be more
than unfair: it would be fraudulent and should be punished under criminal
law. It would also be a disgrace to the Call TV quiz industry." It says: "We
believe that Call TV quiz shows generally look and feel like gambling,
whether or not they will fall within the definition of gambling under the
Gambling Act 2005." The committee will urge the Government to examine this
as a matter of urgency. If quizzes are reclassified as lotteries, regulators
could insist on at least 20 per cent of sales going to good causes. The MPs
concluded that there was a lack of transparency in the phone-in process.
They recommended that "viewers must be given more information allowing them
to have a reasonable understanding of the odds of getting through to the
studio". Odds of getting on-air could be displayed on screen, they said,
adding that a study should be made of how addictive the shows were. Some
callers made 60 attempts within eight minutes. Icstis, the premium-line
regulator, should make it a requirement for broadcasters to tell callers how
much they are spending, the MPs said. They also called on Ofcom to "require
broadcasters to inform viewers that solutions may not be as simple as they
seem". Ministers want Ofcom to draw up proposals for a new regulatory
framework. Shaun Woodward, the Broadcasting Minister, said: "There are
serious issues to be addressed." Both he and the committee accepted that the
quizzes were popular with viewers and were likely to become a vital source
of revenue for commercial broadcasters. Yet the committee noted that "it is
doubtful whether anyone would describe them as high-quality programming and
they are certainly not creative television".

With only about a month to go before the provincially licensed Chances
Cowichan gaming centre opens its doors for the first time, gambling
addiction experts are wondering how it will affect those who like to take a
chance. "Right now we have no idea how it will affect the population," said
Ian Gartshore, executive director and chief therapist of Shore Counseling
Society. "I don't think it will destroy the community, however, those
already struggling to stay within their limits will find it harder to do
that. "No one really knows what will happen." That includes the provincial
government, which is currently conducting a multi-year gambling study
involving four lower mainland communities - Surrey, Vancouver, Langley and
Langley Township - with new gaming venues. These facilities are full-blown
casinos, unlike Duncan's gaming centre which is slated to open March 2 and
will feature a large, 350-seat bingo hall and 75 slot machines. While the
results of the study won't be released until the spring, some initial data
has been. In the Langleys, new admissions for problem gambling treatment
increased after the Cascades gaming venue was introduced. The study has not
established a direct correlation between the new gambling joints and the
increased number of betting addicts, but the government does know problem
gambling is becoming more profound in B.C. The Problem Gambling Help Line
took approximately 5,830 calls specifically related to gambling last year -
a 45 per cent increase over the previous year. Across the province, the
number of clients admitted for treatment increased by 25 per cent in the
same time period. And the total number of calls to the Help Line and the
number of clients referred to counseling services has increased ten-fold
since 2000. That has happened while casinos and all three levels of
government cashed in big time. Casino net income for all of B.C. in 2004/05
was $515 million.
Of that amount, $457 million was allocated to the provincial government, $53
million to local host governments and the balance to the feds. B.C.'s Gaming
Policy and Enforcement branch kicks in about $4-million to help gamblers
overcome their habits. Based on provincial numbers, about 2,000 Valley
residents may be problem gamblers who dabble in bingo halls, casinos,
Internet gaming sites, card games, lottery tickets and even the stock market
to get their fix.

On the plus side of the gambling coin, the new 16,200 square-foot building
built by Cowichan Tribes on reserve land will employ about 65 staff and
deliver cash injections into the local economy, including 10 per cent of the
revenue which will go directly to Cowichan Tribes.

The Duncan Dabber Bingo Society which has run the Ink Spot Bingo Hall for
more than 20 years, will be looking after the new gaming centre.

The society is run by 65 non-profit charities, service clubs and sports
teams and has and given more than $20 million to local charities over the
years.

Dave Clark, vice-president of the DDBS, said bingo players dropped about $5
million at the Ink Spot last year.

"A guess is we'll do between 15 and 20 per cent better than that our first
year in the new centre," he said.

The Chances Cowichan gaming centre will be joining other British Columbia
Lottery Corporation-branded gaming centres in Kelowna, Williams Lakes and
Kamloops.

Provincial government spokespeople did not return repeated calls for
interview requests.

Cowichan/Ladysmith NDP MLA Doug Routley said he hopes the good generated by
the new gaming centre will be enough to offset any bad in this, one of the
poorest ridings in Western Canada.

"I have trouble condemning the place because I hope there's enough economic
development so people can have the right opportunities," he said.

"Yes, it's here now and we need to examine how we can make the economic
impact as positive as we can and be sure to make the negative social impacts
as benign as we can."

One of those negatives could be crime.

In Richmond yesterday, cops were investigating crimes where women were
followed from the River Rock casino and robbed at gunpoint for their cash
and casino chips.

"Now, they have to re-examine their security measures around that casino and
we have to investigate those aspects and address them before they become a
problem here," Routley said.

But Clark said those issues have already been looked after.

"We'll have lots of lighting around the parking area and security people on
site who will walk you to your car if you want."

Gartshore said he also sees a positive side to the new gaming centre.

"The forestry and fishing industries haven't been great and tourism isn't
exactly hopping," he said.

"And people who do like to gamble won't have to drive so far to do it, but
nobody really knows what will happen, when it might cross the line from
entertainment to a problem."

Playing gambling games online for the purpose of earning a living or for
just pure excitement is entirely within your potential and it may just be
possible if you learn some easy rules about the various online gambling
games like casino and poker. However, it takes a great combination of
talent, gusto, staying power, respect and the right kind of temper to
succeed in these gambling games online.

Four investment banks have been issued subpoenas in an investigation into
the multibillion-dollar online gambling industry. The Justice Department has
issued subpoenas to at least four Wall Street investment banks as part of a
widening investigation into the multibillion-dollar online gambling
industry, according to people briefed on the investigation. The subpoenas
were issued to firms that had underwritten the initial public offerings of
some of the most popular online gambling sites that operate abroad. The
banks involved in the inquiry include HSBC, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and
Dresdner Kleinwort, these people said. While online gaming sites like
PartyGaming and 888 Holdings operate from Gibraltar and their initial public
offerings were held on the London Stock Exchange, companies that do business
with them and have large bases in United States have come under scrutiny by
regulators in Washington. None of the biggest United States banks like
Goldman Sachs or Citigroup underwrote the initial public offerings in
London, in part because of the legal ambiguity of the sites; they are
illegal in the United States, but still accessible to residents. The
subpoenas, earlier reported by The Sunday Times of London, appeared to be
part of an indirect but aggressive and far-reaching attack by federal
prosecutors on the Internet gambling industry just two weeks before one of
its biggest days of the year, the Super Bowl.
Unable to go directly after the casinos, which are based overseas, they have
sought to prosecute the operations' American partners, marketing arms and
now, possibly, investors. The prosecutors may be emboldened by a law signed
by President Bush last October that explicitly defined the illegality of
running an Internet casino. Even before that law, the Unlawful Internet
Gambling Enforcement Act, was adopted, the government said that Internet
gambling was illegal under a 1961 provision. These offshore casinos,
typically based in Costa Rica or Antigua, allow American bettors to use
their home and office computers to place wagers on a range of contests.

Millions of Americans participate; more than half of all bets placed to
major offshore casinos are from residents of the United States.

The prosecutors' efforts have already taken a toll in the last two years on
offshore casinos, most notably with the arrest last year of David
Carruthers, the chief executive of an Internet sports book, BetonSports. The
company is based in Britain and has operations in Costa Rica, but Mr.
Carruthers was detained at the Dallas airport while traveling through the
United States.

The arrest led to BetonSports' decision to stop taking bets from the United
States, crippling its business.

Several weeks later, agents of the Port Authority of New York arrested Peter
Dicks, the chairman of Sport-ingbet, which offers online sports betting and,
like Mr. Carruthers's company, trades on the London Stock Exchange. Mr.
Dicks was arrested at Kennedy Airport.

Last week, a British online money transfer business, Neteller, said it would
cease handling gambling transactions from United States customers because of
regulatory uncertainty.

"It appears that the Department of Justice is waging a war of intimidation
against Internet gambling," said I. Nelson Rose, a professor of law at
Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, Calif., who is an expert on Internet
gambling law.

Another lawyer, Lawrence G. Walters of Altamonte Springs, Fla., said the
development was disconcerting because the prevailing wisdom had been that
investment in a company that is legal and licensed in its jurisdiction was
not grounds for prosecution.

"It would be the first time that that kind of liability has been imposed,"
Mr. Walters said.

Macau may have dethroned the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest casino
center, according to figures available Wednesday that show the Chinese
territory's gambling revenue jumped 22 percent to US$6.95 billion last year.
The former Portuguese enclave has been booming since the government busted
up a casino monopoly three years ago and began welcoming U.S. gaming
powerhouses like Las Vegas Sands Corp., MGM Mirage Inc. and Wynn Resorts
Ltd.
The American companies have been furiously building mega casino and resort
projects in the tiny city _ less than one-sixth the size of Washington, D.C.
_ on China's southeastern coast. They say they'll do what they did to Las
Vegas: transform a seedy, worn-out, crime-ridden town into one of the
world's best spots for gambling as well as conventions, glitzy shows, dining
and other family entertainment. Key to Macau's success will be luring the
masses of high rollers from mainland China, who are growing richer and tend
to bet more at the casino tables than Americans do in Las Vegas. "Las Vegas
doesn't have the radius of the population that is as anxious to come to
gamble," Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson, ranked No. 3 on Forbes' magazine's
list of the 400 richest Americans, told The Associated Press in a recent
interview. Sands' promotional material makes the point that this city _ the
only place in China where casino gambling is legal _ is located within a
two-hour flight from 1 billion people. About 3 billion people _ half the
world's population _ in Asia can get to the city within five hours by plane,
the company says.
The Las Vegas Strip has yet to announce its full-year revenue figures for
2006, but it would have to bring in nearly US$1 billion in December alone to
beat Macau's figure, which was posted with no fanfare on the Web site of its
Gaming and Inspection Coordination Bureau.

The Las Vegas Strip has said for the 11 months through November, revenue
came to US$6.08 billion. If December's revenue is the same as it was the
previous year, the annual total would hit about US$6.57 billion _ just
behind Macau.

Last year, Macau's gambling revenue totaled 55.88 billion patacas, or
US$6.95 billion, (??5.33 billion), compared to 45.80 billion patacas in
2005, the gaming bureau's Web site said. The figure includes revenue from
casinos, lotteries and dog and horse racing.

Still, Macau lags far behind the entire state of Nevada, which raked in
US$10.66 billion in 2005, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Despite the recent success, developing Macau is still fraught with many
risks. Analysts say they include an economic meltdown in China, a chronic
labor shortage or a severe outbreak of bird flu or SARS _ severe acute
respiratory syndrome _ which hammered nearby Hong Kong in 2003.

There's also the possibility that a business model that has been wildly
successful in one part of the world fails to take off in a foreign market.
One example is Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, which
retreated from Germany after failing to repeat the enormous success it had
in America.

But Adelson insists that Macau is a sure bet: "There is nothing on the
horizon that will interrupt the growth trend that what we in Macau are
experiencing," he said.

His archrival, billionaire Steve Wynn, is just as bullish. "The speed of
development is dizzying," he said recently. "The population that is seeks to
serve is expanding and is economically growing at a rate larger than any
other part of the world."

Late last year, Wynn opened his US$1.2 billion Wynn Macau resort, with 600
rooms, designer boutiques, restaurants, spa and swimming pool. The sleek
building with a sloping roof is surrounded by gardens and a man-made lake
that wows crowds with a musical water shows.

Adelson opened up first in Macau in 2004 with the gleaming Sands Macau,
which has been wildly successful. Now the billionaire is developing Macau's
Cotai Strip _ an area of reclaimed land that connects two islands: Coloane
and Taipa.

He says it will include more than 20 resorts with 60,000 rooms. Adelson's
US$2.4 billion Venetian Macau will be part of it, with 3,000 suites on a
construction site big enough to park 90 Boeing 747 jumbo jets, the company
says. It plans to open later this year.

The next big event in Macau will likely be the opening of the 430-room Grand
Lisboa Hotel and Casino. It's the latest effort by Macau casino kingpin
Stanley Ho, who lost his gaming monopoly in 2002, to open a modern casino
complex that can compete with his Las Vegas rivals. The Grand Lisboa was
expected to open within the next month.

Jay Melancon hunkered down in an auditorium chair for his morning psychology
class at the University of Minnesota, flipped open his laptop and logged on.
The instructor yammered on at the front of the room, but Melancon wasn't
listening. He was exhausted from staying up all night playing online poker.
And now, sitting in the back of the class, he was playing again. On his
screen, tiny decks of cards flipped and twisted in cyberspace, and Melancon
placed bets with the click of his mouse. The profits just kept getting
bigger. $1,000. $2,000. $3,000. Dude, check this out, he told his buddy. As
class ended and the other students got up to leave, he checked his total one
more time. In the space of an hour, he'd won just about $4,000. Melancon
closed his laptop and walked out into the cold December air. What am I doing
in school? he wondered. Why don't I just do this all the time? Poker is red
hot on college campuses these days. A small number of students have made it
a full-time job, turning what is a game for most into a profession where
tens of thousands of dollars can come and go in a single night.
Today's college students are among the first to grow up with gambling so
accessible. Credit is easily available. Casinos, once relegated to Las Vegas
and Atlantic City, are now scattered across 37 states. Poker is a regular
feature on cable TV. Going to the casino has become a rite of passage for
students as they turn 18. Freshmen play poker in dorm rooms, fraternities
and bars host Texas Hold 'Em tournaments, and students hold sports betting
pools and use wireless Internet connections to play anytime, anywhere. "I
make a joke that ... the second-best gambling environment in America is the
college dorm," said Ken Winters, a professor at the University of Minnesota
who has studied youth addictions, including gambling. "You've got your
privacy, you've got your high-speed Internet, you have independence from a
parent, you probably now have some credit card money. ... It's like a little
mini casino right in your laptop. ... It's almost too easy."
College-age men, especially, have embraced the poker phenomenon.
Card-playing and Internet gambling have increased among college-age males
over the past five years, the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the
University of Pennsylvania found. About 16 percent of them played cards
weekly in 2006, up from nearly 13 percent in 2005, and nearly 6 percent of
them gambled online weekly, up from 2.3 percent in 2005. At Canterbury Card
Club in Shakopee, Minn., crowds are getting younger, said Kevin Gorg, media
relations manager. "Because of the popularity of poker on TV, it's become,
you know, kind of the cool, in-vogue thing to do."

On that cold December morning in 2005, Melancon, now 21, decided to quit
college. He and a group of friends have since bet their livelihood on cards.
They spend hours at card tables and computers, winning and losing thousands
of dollars at a time. They make fast money from less experienced players who
don't know what they're doing.

They don't want to do this forever, they say, but they're going to ride the
poker train as long as it keeps paying.

By 7:30 p.m. one October Thursday, Melancon's friend Mike Pickett had
already been playing cards for nearly seven hours.

He and more than 400 others had traded an autumn day for the green felt
tables and fluorescent lights of the poker room, hoping to win the $117,000
championship-event prize at the Fall Poker Classic at Canterbury Card Club.

Now, partway through the first day of the two-day tournament, the field was
down to 96 players. Pickett, now 22, was among the youngest. The oversized
hood of his sweatshirt shielded his baby face from his opponents' view.

Bryan Devonshire, another young professional gambler, had lost out early -
they call it "busting out" - and came back to watch Pickett and size up the
competition. "This is quite possibly the weakest field I've seen in a
tournament," he said with satisfaction.

Good players quickly earn reputations in the poker world, and Devonshire,
who stood off to the side spitting chew into an empty beer can, saw few of
them there. "There are one, two, three ... nine people left that can play,
and four of them are sitting right here," he said, pointing to Pickett's
table. "Ah, the nature of poker."

Pickett was on a roll. With each passing hour, he added to the towers of
chips piled up in front of him like tiny skyscrapers. Deal, bet, hope for
the best. Deal, bet, hope for the best. Hour after hour after hour. They
broke briefly for dinner and then got back at it.

In tournaments, chips can't be cashed in; the only money involved is the
entry fee and prize money. But the player with the chip lead has an
advantage at the tables, and some of Pickett's friends were watching his
stacks grow with a special interest. Five of them had formed a team and made
a $5,000 side bet with another team of five. If Pickett outlasted the
remaining player from the other team, he and his buddies would win the cash.

The night wore on. The pool of players continued to dwindle. Pickett
continued to win. Deal, bet, hope for the best.

By 11:30 p.m., some of the players were yawning, struggling to stay alert
after nearly 10 hours at the table.

Pickett, though, was in no mood to rest. Though his stacks of chips had
dwindled a bit during the last few hands, he was feeling like a winner.

"I'm feeling great," he said. "This table's a joke."

But with just over two dozen players left, the tournament organizer called
it a day. Playing would resume at 1 the next afternoon. The dealers started
collecting people's chips and sealing them in labeled bags.

Pickett lingered. "I wish we could keep playing," he said.

Some of his friends suggested they head to a bar. But as they passed a Three
Card Poker table on the way out, a few of them sat down. It was a game they
didn't normally play, but they tossed down some bills anyway.

Devonshire headed for the table, too. "I want in. I don't know how to play,
but I want in," he said.

He slapped down $5 and burst out with a giant, hearty giggle when he won
$150 on the first hand.

"All right! This game is awesome!" he yelled. "The odds of doing that were,
like, 470 to 1."

For this group of young gamblers, betting has become a natural part of life.

Devonshire's favorite bet last fall: whether more tire valve stems would be
pointing up or down when he parked a car. He once made a $1,000 bet with two
friends that none would wager more than $100 on side bets in any 24-hour
period - "a bet to prevent us from betting," he said.

The life of a professional poker player comes with freedom from schedules,
money to invest, travel, and extra cash for bars and restaurants. It's great
as long as the player is good enough to make money and the betting is kept
under control, Devonshire and the others say.

But it's also a tough life. There are grueling, all-night sessions staring
at a screen or sitting at a table, doing the mental math to assess risk in
each hand and trying to outlast opponents. There are giant swings in
fortune, from huge wins to demoralizing losses. And with poker available
around the clock, some feel they need to play around the clock. "I feel like
every time I'm not playing, I'm losing money," Pickett said.

The Minnesota group of friends - more than a dozen, most in their early
20s - is about evenly split between college graduates and college dropouts.
They help each other through the tough times. They exchange advice on
everything: how much money they should keep in their savings for the
downturns, how to play a particular hand, how to invest.

They make a good living, they say. Some drive luxury cars, have giant-screen
TVs and go on poker-playing trips to Las Vegas and the Bahamas. Some have
invested in real estate. One player, Mike Schneider, won $1 million at a
cruise ship poker tournament last spring.

The key is having the willpower to stop playing for a while when their luck
is down, they say. And when it starts feeling too solitary, they sometimes
get together with their laptops. They play individually, but they have the
camaraderie of the group.

They all say they plan to do something else eventually.

Stopping may come sooner rather than later, depending on the effects of a
2006 law designed to shut down online gambling in the United States.

Some veteran gamblers are wary about what a life built around poker might do
to the young guys long-term. "They end up being gamblers with no family, no
life, no nothing," said Dick Hoffman, who was also playing in the Canterbury
tournament. Hoffman has been gambling for 30 years, though not as a
profession. "Poker will be their life. Maybe that's OK, I don't know. But I
wonder."

Devonshire, 25, has already seen some effect.

He grew up in California and came to Minnesota to get married, but he says
late-night poker playing helped kill his marriage in less than a year. He
now lives just outside Las Vegas; a recent text message he sent at 7 p.m.
said, "Just woke up today :-)."

He went broke playing stakes that were too high for him, he said. He worked
his way back when a casino hired him to play poker to entice customers.

A former Christian youth minister, he struggles with how some in the church
might view what he does.

"I'm curious," Devonshire conceded to Hoffman, standing in the card club at
midnight on a Thursday. "In 20 years, what am I going to think about this
period of my life?"

On the second day of the tournament at Canterbury, Pickett continued to
expand his stacks of chips.

By early afternoon, his friends - some still a little bleary-eyed from a
late night - started trickling in to cheer him on.

"Let's go, Mickey!" yelled Andy Fox, a 29-year-old who rents a townhouse a
stone's throw from Canterbury and has been playing professionally for about
four years.

Ten minutes later, the pool of players was down to 10 and Pickett had won
another big hand.

"Way to go, bad boy!" Fox yelped.

With around $300,000 in chips, Pickett was the leader, and his friends were
confident he was on his way to winning the tournament. His towers of gray
and yellow chips loomed tall.

Then came a critical hand.

Checking the two pocket cards the dealer had tossed him, Pickett
nonchalantly flipped in four gray chips - $20,000 worth - for his opening
bet. One of his opponents tossed in a few more chips, re-raising to $70,000.
Pickett re-raised for everything his opponent had: more than $200,000 total.

The other guy didn't even blink.

The room went silent. Pickett's buddies craned their necks to watch.

The opponent flipped over his cards: a pair of kings.

Pickett flipped over his cards: a pair of aces.

"Thatta boy, Mikey P!" one of Pickett's friends yelled from the crowd.

"Yeah!" yelled another.

But Pickett hadn't won yet. His aces were hard to beat, but the deciding
factor would be the five community cards the dealer flipped over next:
Three. King. King. Seven. Jack.

It was the kings that did it; they gave Pickett's opponent four of a kind.

The crowd gasped. Pickett was beat.

In a single hand, his tournament hopes had come crashing down. In a matter
of seconds, he had gone from a likely winner to nearly finished, his stacks
of chips dwindling to a meager $62,000 worth. He'd need a lot more than that
to make a good run for the grand prize.

"That's brutal, man," another player at the table told him, shaking his head
as they got up for a break.

Pickett walked alone to the far corner of the room. His friends stood
helpless.

"He played it absolutely perfect and he got effed by the cards," Devonshire
muttered to the others. "God, that's so frustrating."

They stayed silent as Pickett came back. Another man wandered over, "You
need some Tums or something?"

When the game resumed, Pickett, devoid of the powerful chip lead, quickly
lost out. He finished ninth and won $7,799 - not bad for two days of work.
Days earlier, he won more than $17,000 in another tournament. Still, both
sums were paltry compared with the $117,000 grand prize and recognition he
was hoping for. It had been so close. But that's poker.

When Pickett busted out, it was only 3:30 p.m., too early to go to the bar,
they agreed. Instead they could lick their wounds at Fox's townhouse nearby.

Valets retrieved Pickett's black Mercedes. The license plates read "ANTE
UP."

They piled into the dimly lit townhouse and opened some beer. Nobody talked
about the tournament.

The allure of gambling calls out to Matthew Bowles-Roth wherever he goes.
When he drives on the freeway, casino billboards entice him with riches.
When he buys cigarettes at the convenience store, lottery tickets shine
under the glass counter. When he flips through TV channels, guys his age
appear in high-stakes poker tournaments, beaming like movie stars. Each
time, Matthew pauses. He can't take that path again. He forces himself to
remember what it was like when he did: Lying. Stealing. Dropping out of
college. "There's tons of things that I just wish I had never done," he says
now, four years later. At 22, Matthew has experienced the grip of gambling
in a way most people never will. In just three years, he went from someone
who had never gambled to compulsive gambler to recovering addict. He is part
of an age group that is drawing increasing concern from gambling-addiction
counselors, government regulators and college administrators.
Card playing and Internet gambling have increased among college-age men in
recent years, according to one study in Pennsylvania. And many of them
learned the game in high school. In many cases, "parents are actually
strongly encouraging their kids to play poker," said Jeff Derevensky,
co-director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and
High-Risk Behaviors at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. "They would
prefer them to be in their basements playing poker than doing something
'more dangerous' like drinking and doing drugs." Research is scant about
college-age gambling participation over time. And studies conflict on the
question of whether young people are more susceptible to become problem
gamblers - some studies say yes, others cast doubt on that premise. Still,
researchers are concerned that gambling accessibility could lead to more
problems. At Project Turnabout/Vanguard in Granite Falls, Minn., which has
an inpatient gambling treatment program, the number of clients younger than
25 has gone from about three per year in 1992 to between 20 and 30 per year
now, estimates Sandi Brustuen, gambling program coordinator. "It's just
increasing all the time," she said. The program takes people who are 18 and
older, but "most of them are doing it before then, in their basements and on
the Internet and with their friends." The state of Minnesota has brought a
responsible-gambling campaign to 10 college campuses. Roger Skogman, who was
on the advisory committee, said they wanted to increase awareness after
hearing from high schools and colleges in recent years.

"We've heard from high schools that kids are showing up who haven't been to
bed at night because they've been at the casino all night long," he said.
"You hear stories about parents setting up Texas Hold 'Em nights. ... These
kids are doing side bets and everything else."

Some establishments keep an eye out for trouble. Canterbury Park Racetrack
and Card Club in Shakopee, for instance, has security staff watch for people
who might have gambling problems and tries to connect them to services, said
Kevin Gorg, media relations manager.

While a select few players win enough to earn a living, far more lose money.
And for some, like Matthew, gambling takes over their lives.

Late on a July night, Matthew stood with his friends outside the doors of
Mystic Lake Casino, his driver's license in hand. When the clock ticked past
midnight, he turned 18 and was legally old enough to gamble. He headed for
the blackjack tables.

As he laid his first bet on the table - two $1 chips - his heart raced. At
that moment, nothing else in the world mattered except the cards being
flipped over in front of him. He brushed his hand across the soft felt of
the tabletop. He fingered the chips and was comforted by their sharp
clicking.

"It was instantaneous," he said later. "I fell in love when I got there and
fell deeper in love with every bet."

He walked out into the sunrise with an extra $97 in his pocket.

I could come here and win $100 every night, he thought. Throughout his
senior year at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minn., Matthew had
watched his friends head to the casino to celebrate their 18th birthdays - a
rite of passage for many these days.

Matthew didn't seem a likely risk for developing a gambling problem. The son
of physicians, he grew up in Minneapolis and got good grades in high school.
He played saxophone in the band and acted in high school theater. His
parents, Carolyn Bowles and Craig Roth, said they never gambled. They didn't
like it and discouraged it.

Gambling addiction is an "equal opportunity destroyer," Derevensky said.
"Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. Doesn't matter if you come from a
good home."

After that first visit, Matthew went back. Again and again - almost every
night after his shift delivering pizzas. He says he broke even by summer's
end, when he went off to college.

At DePaul University in Chicago, he needed to be 21 to go to a casino. So he
didn't gamble, but he thought about it - all the time.

He daydreamed about the mansion he'd buy someday with his winnings. It would
be somewhere warm, and it would have a garage to house the red Porsche and
black Lamborghini he planned to buy. He spent hours playing video games and
card games on his computer, trying to recapture the rush he felt at the
casino.

His classes went on without him. He fell behind and dropped most of them
before the second semester ended.

Back home for the summer, Matthew headed to the casino. On his first trip,
he said, he won big: $4,000.

Gambling replaced his summer job. He made sure he was gone by the time his
parents got home from work, because he knew they would disapprove.

At Mystic Lake, his bets grew bigger. Sometimes, he'd put $200 or $300 down
on a single hand. He was treated like royalty. A valet parked his car. The
casino gave him free meals. Workers brought him free cigarettes.

He sat in the high-roller room and reveled in the fact that people were
watching him play.

A lot of his friends stopped going with him - none of them wanted to stay as
late as he always did. But he still used them as cover, telling his parents
he was staying overnight with them.

He once stayed at Mystic Lake for three days straight, he said. Dealers left
and came back the next day for their shifts. He was still there, he said,
still playing cards.

"No sleep, no eating, no showering, no brushing my teeth," he said. "I
gambled until I was physically unable to gamble anymore."

He finally drove home, unable to see straight, shaky from exhaustion and
falling asleep at the wheel.

By that fall, Matthew said, he had won more than $10,000. But after a
marathon summer at the casino, who could concentrate on sc