Bingo Street is running two oddly related news stories today – one about the upcoming release of a UK government report that focuses on the issue of problem gambling in the country, and the other on an Australian media report showing a link between anti-smoking laws and a reduction in problem gambling.

While the land-based and online bingo industries in the UK may find themselves under pressure to address the issue of problem gambling, Britain’s recent implementation of anti-smoking laws may turn out to be a major factor in reducing the overall effect of problem gambling itself.

Such a conclusion must send a collective shiver down the land-based bingo industry’s spine since they have been actively opposing smoking bans in the name of their own profit margins.  They must be horrified at how a government report that seeks solutions for problem gambling dovetails nicely with the findings of an Australian report on a smoking ban’s positive effect on problem gambling.

You can read the two articles here.

So, fellow denizens of the ‘we-don’t-care-if-you-smoke’ online bingo community, will the new smoking bans in the UK become the online gaming industry’s unwritten response to curbing problem gambling?  I think the unanswered answer to that is land-based bingo’s worst nightmare.

Written by John Witherspoon - Play bingo online at http://bingostreet.com/ and read bingo news.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 1:59 am and is filed under Online Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.