Harvard Study Says Online Poker Risks ModerateThe Risk of Becoming Addicted to Online Gambling is Not Strong Says New Study |
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The widespread availability of online gambling has not led to an increase in the number of people becoming addicted to gambling the Harvard Crimison reported yesterday.
The study, undertaken by the Harvard Medical School Division on Addictions, observed 3,445 poker players on Austrian site Bwin since February 2005 and was designed to thoroughly investigate whether online gambling was “a potential object of addictive behavior.”
However the study found that the availability of online gambling is not correlated to gambling addiction.
According to the thecrimson.com the study “actually found that gamblers who visit gaming Web sites are more likely to self-regulate their betting behavior based on their pattern of wins and losses.”
The study also showed that the percentage of problem gamblers remained largely unchanged since the 1970s at 0.6 percent of the U.S. population.
Andrew M. Woods, the executive director of Harvard Law School’s Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society, was unsurprised by the findings the paper reported, saying poker is less like gambling and more like “risk assessment.”
“There is no house in poker, so no one is guaranteed to win,” he said. “Poker exercises your ability to make good decisions.”
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