Through Monday, bettors had wagered $243,787,439 legally on Canadian harness races in 2006. It sounds like a lot of money, until one considers that to the same date in 2005, the total was nearly $274 million.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, which runs this province's legal betting, has seen its revenues dip more than $330 million in the past three years, with another $200 million forecast for 2006.
Where is all the money going? Most of it to Belize and a dozen other hot spots over the Internet, that's where.
People aren't gambling less. They're gambling more than ever — encouraged by the biggest bookmaker of all, our government(s). The sooner our leaders wake up and smell the coffee on this one, the better for everyone. It's time we legalize all forms of gambling, regulate it, keep underage kids from participating and keep hundreds of millions — soon to be billions — of Canadian dollars in Canada.
Nobody and no single thing are going to stop the spread of gambling, legal or otherwise. That horse has left the barn. Internet gambling sites, operating under sometimes loose regulations in countries outside Canadian (or U.S.) law, are siphoning the action — meaning Canadian dollars — away from our country. Potential tax revenues are flying away, an amount increasing daily and heading toward billions annually.
Yes, expanding gambling will result in more problem gamblers. They are increasing anyway; it takes no more than 15 minutes to get set up online and start losing the grocery money. A government could go the other way and make all gambling illegal — which will never happen — and the Internet would still promote the spread of the sickness. It's here forever.
The more gambling revenue that stays home, the more that can be diverted into treatment for those with problems, for starters.
You think the boys from Belize and Costa Rica care who's getting hooked up here?
Plus, we don't ban booze because a certain percentage of drinkers become alcoholics. Right or wrong, that isn't the argument any more, that a percentage will be left behind in the ditch.
According to industry figures, gambling in Canada is a $14 billion-a-year business, both legal and underground. The industry directly employs 50,000 workers and another 50,000 to 60,000, most of them in Ontario, make their living in horse racing, which is taking an enormous hit from Internet companies, as was documented in this space yesterday.
Everybody's getting hurt, even Las Vegas, world capital of gambling. So-called "gaming" revenues — the name is always changed to protect the innocent — used to represent 80 to 90 per cent of Nevada's income. Now it's just over 50 per cent. This past Super Bowl, Las Vegas's legal sports books handled between $95 million and $100 million (U.S.) on the Steelers-Seahawks game. The worldwide estimated Internet total on the game was $1 billion.
Worldwide Internet gambling revenues were an estimated $5 billion (U.S.) in 2001, will hit some $12 billion this year and are projected for $21 billion by 2010. We can do nothing and watch our money fly away or we can open the bet shops a little wider here and get back some of the disappearing dollars. It's our call.
We already permit legal betting on sports events, but only in the form of parlays — the ultimate sucker's bet. We don't allow single-game betting on sports. That must change. We also must lower the takeout to compete with offshore pirates, who have low costs to operate; enforce the advertising ban on Internet gambling and make it illegal for credit-card companies to bankroll betting with offshore companies. No one will ever stop anyone from going to the post office and mailing a money order to Antigua to open an account, but if it's easy and legal to do it at the corner store, or from their own laptop, why bother?
This is an easy call. The only choice we have is determining how big we wish the elephant in the room to grow.
source : Toronto Star
