MARCH 25, 2015 – Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony on behalf of the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC). I personally bring some expertise on gambling policy to this debate, having served with the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement from 1995 through 2000 and in various capacities with the IGC since 2001, including serving as the association’s CEO.
The IGC is an advocate for regulation of the online gaming industry where players’ rights are protected, sites operate in a reasonably transparent fashion, and operators comply with the licensing and regulatory policies of the jurisdictions in which they operate. The movement toward regulation has been successful throughout Europe.
In the U.S., at least three states license, regulate, and tax online. In New Jersey, the state’s top gaming regulator published a list of achievements after New Jersey’s first year of successfully regulating online gaming. While New Jersey didn’t achieve the revenues that were initially forecast, the internationally respected Division of Gaming Enforcement reported that their system of licensing and regulating online gaming is working. And, just recently Pennsylvania introduced bipartisan legislation to legalize online gaming.
It is the IGC’s contention that the solution lies in a strictly regulated alternative aimed at ensuring the presence of harm minimization measures, not the least of which relate to the protection of children and compulsive gamblers. New technologies actually provide
regulators with tools not previously available in most traditional forms of gambling, including the ability to provide an audit trail for each transaction, to limit players to total or individual amounts bet, and to block participation by specified players or classes of players, such as college athletes. Similar arguments have been made regarding problem gamblers. With proper regulation, a computer-based system can allow a gambler to self-exclude or to establish loss limits. In fact, computer technology provides an opportunity to identify patterns of behavior that may lead to problem gambling, and offer intervention in a more timely and critical manner.
The IGC has concluded that its support for Internet gaming regulation is focused on the exact issues raised by proponents of restoring the Wire Act. The key issues of such an approach are overall consumer protection, prevention of underage gamblers, appropriate compulsive gambling controls, oversight of revenue and the integrity of products and probity of those involved.
The IGC believes regulation will do far more to restrict problem and underage gambling than will any attempt at prohibition. The RAWA legislation will provide opportunities for unregulated, underground on-line gaming, rather than well regulated, transparent and fair online gaming.
I hope at some point, this debate can move beyond the question of how we can get rid of online gambling – we can’t, unless the U.S. is prepared to pull the plug on the world wide web– and move on to the question of how we can get rid of the problems that can accompany it.
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I have pasted below a sampling of Myths vs. Facts, as a way that IGC has worked hard against misinformation being disseminated by online gaming opponents.
THE TRUTH ABOUT IGAMING: SOME MYTHS VS FACTS
MYTH: ONLINE GAMBLING TARGETS PROBLEM GAMBLERS
Fact: The risk with land-based casinos is that a person can just walk in and play. Thanks to technology, tools have been developed to offer a more robust system of checks and balances for online gambling than land-based gaming, including enabling players to set limits on their play if they choose and blocking access to those who should not gamble online.
MYTH: IT IS EASY FOR KIDS TO GAMBLE ONLINE
Fact: The bottom line is that kids shouldn’t gamble. Ever. The IGC strongly believes that if policy makers want to protect children, individuals that suffer adverse consequences of excessive gambling, and the general public, then the true and only response is regulation. With proper regulation, there are a series of checks and balances, including verification of age, that have to occur before any player can deposit, play or withdraw.
MYTH: ONLINE GAMING CANNIBALIZES FROM LAND-BASED CASINOS
Fact: The reality is that we live in an online world. Based on the rollout of online gaming in the UK, legal online poker did not cannibalize casinos’ revenues. In fact, many believe that the popularity of online poker is responsible for the resurgence or increase in land-based gambling.
Keith Furlong, CEO
Interactive Gaming Council
