MONDAY,APRIL28,2003
GAMBLING
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN - 7A
Gambling CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
photo by Scott Reynolds
"The investment of putting money down means they have something to win or lose based on the result of the game." DeSalvo said. "The act of watching a game isn't enough until there is an element of risk. The introduction of money is the risk."
DeSalvo also attributed gambling to a student's living environment and an element of peer pressure.
"If there is an environment where gambling is a regular activity, they're more at risk," DeSalvo said. "There are college students who would never have gambled if it wasn't part of their living environment."
Josh Doebele, Lenexa sophomore, agreed that living in a fraternity house with friends who gambled fed his habit. Doebele started betting on sports online last fall after his friend told him about a big win.
"I think it's really common among college men, but not girls," he said. "I don't bet big amounts, just $30 or $40. Over eight months, I think I've broke even."
Doebele only bets on sports because he doesn't trust online casino games.
"Besides, it's more fun to watch games when you have money on it," Doebele said.
DeSalvo, CAPS director, said although students at the University were involved in gambling, it didn't make them any different than students at other universities.
A POTENTIAL PROBLEM
"There is no reason to think we're better or worse," he said.
Despite its growing popularity, potential problems abound with online gambling, including the possibility for fraud and addiction.
If on-site operators fail to properly credit winnings, gamblers have little room for action because it is difficult to pinpoint on-site operators in the anonymity of cyberspace.
According to a U.S. Senate committee report, online gambling may also contribute to gambling addictions because of the detached gambling environment on the Internet. The Internet provides an atmosphere where there is no tangible money, like chips, won or lost, and gamblers may lose track of how much money is won or lost.
"Online gambling poses more of a threat because of its accessibility," said Jeff Lees, certified counselor at the St. Francis Health Center in Topeka. "It's in your house, in your bedroom. With a traditional casino, you have to make the effort, make a trip."
The immediacy of gambling on the Internet also makes it an attractive option for students, Lees said. The most common type of gambling college students participate in is action gambling, which includes gambling on sports and events, he said.
What may start as social betting in the college setting can quickly become an addiction. The American Psychiatric Association has recognized pathological, compulsive and addictive gambling as levels of a gambling behavioral disorder since 1980. Symptoms include preoccupation with gambling with the exclusion of other activities and the inability to control gambling-related behaviors, even in the face of financial and relationship costs.
Lees compared problem gambling to a cocaine addiction the chasing, the debt and the depression.
"It's never cured."Lees said. "But recovery is possible with support groups and credit counseling."
To date, studies have not proven there is any one cause of problem gambling. But certain
"Online gambling poses more of a threat because of its accessibility. It's in your house, in your bedroom. With a traditional casino, you have to make the effort, make a trip."
Jeff Lees
Jeff Lees
Certified counselor at St. Francis Health
Center in Topeka
biological, psychological and sociological processes have been linked to problem gambling.
Even the National Collegiate Athletics Association sees Internet gambling as a potential problem for college students because a large number of students have the necessary credit cards to register for online gambling accounts.
Internet gambling is especially alluring to college students, said Bill Saum, director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities for the NCAA. He told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee last month that a recent Nellie Mae study found 90 percent of 20-year-olds have credit cards, with an average of four cards per person and an average debt of $2,264. Gaming lobbyist Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, estimated 95 percent of all online wagering is done with charge cards.
A provision in the Amateur Sports Integrity Act, introduced
last year by U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and two other senators, could make universities accountable for students who gamble on the Internet.
The bill would require institutions of higher education, such as the University, to monitor the use of an institution's Internet facilities to detect online gambling.
Any institution of higher education that fails to monitor its Internet access would be ineligible for federal education funding. Although the University is capable of monitoring student access to online gambling sites, it is extraordinarily difficult, said Allison Rose Lopez, director of external relations for Information Services.
"In addition to monitoring the type of file, we would have to also monitor the type of information the student is accessing," Lopez said. "We can see if someone is downloading an MP3, but monitoring content is very difficult, as we understand it."
OUTDATED LAWS
Although Internet users are bombarded with pop-up ads promoting virtual casinos and the sites are easily accessed, the legal status of Internet gambling is vague.
Some site operators have been prosecuted under the 1961 Wire Communications Act, which was written to regulate sports betting via telephone. But wireless Internet connections and other discrepancies in the law leave room for legal maneuvering.
Jay Cohen, co-owner of the gambling site World Sports Exchange, is serving a 21-month sentence in a Las Vegas jail for operating a gambling Web site from the island nation Antigua. Cohen voluntarily returned to the United States in 1998 to fight federal criminal charges against him and his company. Cohen is the only foreign-based individual, operating entirely from a sovereign country where Internet wagering is legal and regulated, who has been convicted by the United States.
He was the first person con
For more coverage on athletes who gamble, see tomorrow's Kansan
victed under the Wire Wager Act for operating an offshore gambling Web site that took bets from Americans. The Wire Wager Act makes it a crime to — among other things -use telephone lines in interstate or foreign commerce for the placement of sports bets, or for the transmission of information assisting in the placing of bets on sporting events and contests, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Some states, including Missouri, have relied on state gambling laws or consumer protection laws to prohibit online gambling but allow some form of legalized gambling. Larry Lawson consumer specialist in the Kansas Attorney General's office, said Kansas only recognized its own state-run lottery and all others were considered illegal.
Signs of compulsive or Problem Gambling
But because Internet gambling crosses state lines and is difficult for states to regulate, the federal government has taken action. To clarify outdated laws, Congress is considering several bills on the topic of online gambling.
Impulsive behavior:
Need to gamble with increasing amounts of money
Inability to control or stop gambling despite serious negative consequences
Preoccupation:
Minimizing losses and exaggerating wins
- Increasing frequency of gambling activities
Gambling becomes the major focus of thinking, even when not gambling
Minimizing of Behavior:
Lying to family members or others to conceal the extent of gambling behavior
In mid-March, before NCAA basketball madness officially hit, U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) proposed legislation to prohibit
Disregard for
The U.S. Senate Banking committee is also examining legislation aimed at shutting down virtual casinos by making it harder to use credit cards on gambling sites.
Failing to pay daily living expenses
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act sponsored by U.S. Rep. James Leach (R-Iowa), which passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year but died in the Senate, would make it illegal for financial institutions to grant permission to customers to use credit cards or bank account wire transfers to pay for gambling over the Internet. The bill was approved by a voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee on March 13 and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Selling personal belongings to gamble or pay gambling debts
Relying on others to provide money to relieve desperate financial situation caused by gambling
Borrowing money from extended family members, friends and work colleagues to gamble
— Isolating self from family members and friends
— Less interested and less aware of personal, family and occupational issues
— Gambling despite health problems related to gambling
source: Addictions Foundation of Manitoba
the use of credit cards, checks and electronic fund transfers to pay for online bets. The legislation was introduced against the backdrop of the NCAA basketball tournament, the most wagered-on event in college sports.
In all, Americans will illegally wager more than $2 billion through offshore Internet gambling sites this year, according to testimony before the banking committee last month.
Attorney Frank Catania, president of the Catania Consulting Group, told the Senate committee on behalf of the Interactive Gaming Council there was no effective way to stop Internet gambling because gamblers could find other ways to fund betting, such as virtual e-cash.
But credit card issuers such as MasterCard and Visa have already begun to refuse some customer charges for Internet bets. Visa processes Internet gambling transactions on a global level but requires all online gambling companies to identify themselves so banks can decide whether to process the
transaction, said Casey Watson, electronic commerce representative for Visa. About 21,000 banks worldwide are a part of the Visa association.
"We give the banks the right to determine whether to process transactions based on legality," Watson said. "In the United States, where Internet gambling is illegal, the banks can decline the transaction."
While he gambled online, Shannon Guelbert was losing money faster than he was winning it. Today, he doesn't gamble as much. Now that he's 21 years old, he can bet legally across the state line. An occasional trip to Missouri's riverboat casinos, where he usually loses money, and a spring break trip to Las Vegas, from which he came home short, are his only remaining forays into the world of gambling.
A DECISION TO QUIT
"I couldn't afford to do it anymore," Guelbert said. "I was losing more than I wanted to. It was kind of a recurring pattern."
Edited by Amber Byarlay
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