• Survey: Gambling Elders Enjoy Better Health

UNCASVILLE, Connecticut (AP) -- It's Friday at the Mohegan Sun casino, and most of the daytime gamblers are retirees like 73-year-old Mike Sanzo. He's checking out the day's races, while his wife hits the slots. Sanzo says he gambles for fun and enjoys the friends he's made among other regulars at the casino since leaving his job installing signs for the state highway department. "I'm retired, and it exercises my brain," he says. He's an example of what a surprising Yale University study found -- older recreational gamblers seem to be healthier than non-gamblers. The findings are not rock-solid. They're only based on telephone interviews, but the results are the opposite of what researchers expected. The survey showed that recreational gamblers 65 and older reported being in better health than their peers who don't gamble. The older gamblers also reported less alcoholism, depression, bankruptcy and imprisonment than younger recreational gamblers, Yale epidemiologist Rani Desai said. Desai cautioned that more study is needed to conclude that gambling can be a healthy venture, and those who help gambling addicts are skeptical. But the social aspects of gambling -- whether it's slot machines at a casino, poker games with friends or bingo at a church hall -- may be an explanation for how the study turned out, Desai said. "There's this whole concept of healthy aging -- that folks who continue to remain engaged in activity, especially in the community and in social activities, stay healthier longer, so I think this is a reflection of that. It's not that gambling makes you healthy, it's that gamblers are healthier," Desai said. Some psychologists question the findings. [...]

> Read the full story here Source : CNN.com

• US State Lottery Accidentally Promotes Offshore Casino

Casino Fortune has announced it has seen a 50% increase in traffic from the residents of Oregon since that state’s lottery released an instant scratch card product also called Casino Fortune. Lottery operators claimed confusion over the names was ‘unlikely’. Chuck Bauman, Oregon Lottery spokesman, told the press: “since there is no tie-in between the instant game and the Internet, confusion is not likely.” However, Casino Fortune explained that the number of Oregon participants in the Casino Fortune Website has grown from 8,550 before the scratch ticket game’s release, to almost 12,500 at present. In fact, spokeman, Kevin Mercuri, speaking to www.Bend.com, aid more than 2,700 Oregon clients responded to the registration question, “How did you hear about us?” with the answer: “scratch card.” “It’s obvious to us that Oregon is not exactly Las Vegas or Atlantic City,” continued Mercuri. “In our database, clients coming in from the state of Oregon are pretty slim.” [...]

> Read the full story here Source : OnlineCasinoNews.com

• Can You Win Without Doing Your Homework First?

Everybody likes to win money at the casinos. Second best is being able to participate in the action for a satisfactorily long session on a stake that seemed sensible before leaving home. A distant third is not tapping a spouse, friend, or debit/credit kiosk in the lobby in a desperate effort to continue or recover. Frequent players know they can enhance their prospects by diligently studying their favorite games. They learn or devise strategies for decisions, alternate wagers, and betting combinations and progressions fitting the games they enjoy. These strategies let them fine-tune their play. Their criteria may be anything from minimizing house advantage to balancing a strong chance at a small win against a weak shot at a big payday, or not going broke and wondering what to do the rest of the time. But, regular patrons aren't the only solid citizens who visit the posh punting palaces of the planet. Lots of people gamble as an occasional, maybe a once in a blue moon or in a lifetime, recreational activity. By and large, these folks want to fantasize about winning or at least breaking even, have fun, feel the verve, and get a free voucher for the all-you-can-eat buffet. Most such civilians don't want to make gambling more of a burden than a pleasure. By and large, they don't want to spend days digesting the nuances of a game they'll be playing for a few hours. Bettors who do their homework would like to believe that anyone who doesn't is only giving money away. Yet, every practiced player has had the agony of losing by doing everything "right," while a rank amateur a seat or so away is raking in the dough by doing everything "wrong." Sure, some of it's simply serendipity - the luck of the draw, the bounce of the ball, the roll of the dice, the spin of the reel. It's more than that, though. Nothing in the laws of probability says you can't win if you don't play optimally. What the math does tell is how various alternatives affect the chances of achieving desired outcomes. [...]

> Read the full story here Source : PressOfAtlanticCity.com

• Online Gambling Needs Regulation

New York, NY - September 14, 2004 - A panel of experts met today to launch a national public policy initiative - "Proposition 1: To Regulate or Prohibit Online Gambling" - designed to create a framework for lawmakers to regulate the online gambling industry. The meeting, the first in a series of "Summits" to be held across the U.S. this month, was hosted by BETonSPORTS plc, the world's largest online wagering service. Today's discussion examined the issue of regulation vs. prohibition of the online gaming industry. The consensus of the panel, which included four experts from the fields of law, education and online gambling, was that online gambling would exist whether it's legal or illegal: regulation is necessary to protect consumers and bring the industry into the full light of government oversight. Regulation will therefore help eliminate illegal behaviors that can result from relegating gaming to the margins of society. The federal government's current position of prohibition, and the actions of the Department of Justice against media companies accepting advertising from the online gambling industry, is counterproductive and based on archaic legal thinking. Koleman Strumpf, an associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has completed extensive research on the subject and shared his theory on the connection between prohibition of gambling and bad behavior: "Regardless of one's view of betting, the prohibition policy that we are currently engaged in is a very bad policy because prohibitions tend not to work and prohibition tends to lead to exacerbating the harms associated with the activity, to bring out the worse in terms of encouraging bad behavior." Linda Goldstein, a partner with the firm of Manatt, Phelps and Philips LLP and a nationally-recognized expert in several distinct segments of the advertising and marketing industry including promotions, the Internet, direct response and telemarketing, called for legislators to "rethink" the current approach when dealing with online gambling. "I hope what happens here today is a catalyst for legislators and public policy makers to rethink some of the approach to this issue," she said. "The enforcement activities that have occurred have been haphazard and not really effective. The gambling laws and the acts that were written 50 years ago did not contemplate the invention of the Internet." The subject of regulation as a means of protecting the consumer was covered by Frank Catania. Mr. Catania is a former Director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the regulatory and enforcement agency responsible for maintaining integrity and trust in all Atlantic City gaming operations. He spoke extensively about how regulation in the online gaming industry can ensure that the rights of consumers and the rights of businesses are protected, with a particular focus on the steps that could be taken to meet this standard. "What the Department of Justice is doing in the intimidation of media companies is a blatant violation of their authority," he said. "In my view, this industry should be regulated at the state level where the expertise about gaming exists. Online gaming companies can submit to probity checks, be required to conform to the regulations on payouts and that's where player protections can be instituted." Legalizing and regulating online gambling will also benefit the economy, members of the panel predicted. Prohibiting online gambling would only allow another country to take the lead on developing it as a legitimate and profitable business. Said David Carruthers, Chief Executive Officer of BETonSPORTS: "It is shortsighted to imagine that this business stops at the shores of the United States. The US could be the home of online gaming for the world and exploit markets way beyond its shores." The Summit tour continues in Washington on Thursday, September 16, at the Occidental Grill from 12:30pm to 3:30pm. Panelists will include Emily Hancock, E-Commerce and Technology Law Attorney at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Robin Hanson, and Ph.D., Assistant Economics Professor at George Mason University, and Keith Whyte, Executive Director, National Council on Problem Gambling. Next, the Summit moves to Chicago on September 22 and Los Angeles on September 24.

> Read the full story here Source : BetOnSports.com

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