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25.11.2006 The BBC 'Panorama' program titled "Online Gambling: Britain's New Obsession" will be broadcast on Sunday 26 November at 2215, but it is already attracting both mainstream headlines and critical comment thanks to pre-publicity material rather sensationally claiming that a "Million a year could get hooked!" The problem gambler help organisation Gamcare is the latest to enter the fray, commenting that according to press reports "....the programme will suggest the UK government has underestimated the numbers of online gamblers. Figures to be aired in the programme will suggest that an 'average of 5.8 million Britons visited online gambling sites from April to September'.
"The [newspaper] report quotes an addiction expert from Birmingham University, professor Jim Orford, as saying the UK government's reforms could see up to a million people becoming hooked on online gaming a year.
"However, GamCare has enlisted its own professor, Peter Collins, professor of social studies at Salford University, who said there are 'no reliable studies of the extent of online gambling in the UK or elsewhere'.
"The best estimate is that remote gambling accounts for between 3 percent and 5 percent of all gambling that takes place in this country. Remote gambling does carry special risks in respect of problem gambling due to its exceptional convenience. That is why it is so important that governments, as ours is doing, make every effort to regulate this activity effectively and that organisations, such as GamCare, develop rigorous codes of practice to minimise the risks and to ensure that players who do develop problems have immediate access to free, expert and confidential help and advice."
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