A casino in the palm of your hand

February The announcement last week that two UK companies had developed a secure mobile casino system that will run on any mobile phone was significant. By utilizing the Spin3 wireless casino system, casino operators, mobile network providers and any company with an internet presence can now offer a secure mobile casino via a large selection of mobile phones and other wireless devices. The Spin3 wireless casino system consists of six real-time networked casino games, including blackjack, roulette and scratch card. The Spin3 mobile casino system also includes a progressive jackpot slots game, and players will have the chance to win a continuously growing jackpot that starts at US$40,000, right from their mobile device. Conversely, those people will also have the opportunity to lose their money and that spells some significant social problems over the next few years. Gambling's best clients are the addicted.

Depending on the nation, culture, race and how the statistics were compiled, somewhere between two and six percent of the population of every country has a pathological addiction to gambling. What causes it doesn't really matter - it is an addiction, and beyond the heavily addicted there's another five or more percent that could be termed compulsive gamblers to some degree.

Surveys of gambling spending show over 80% of gambling spending is by heavy gamblers. It's a perfect example of the old Pareto (80/20) principle: most (80%) of your business comes from a small percentage (20%) of the client base.

Gambling's best clients are the addicted. Governments have become addicted to gambling too

And the problem is that it's not just this segment of the population that has become addicted. Governments have become addicted to gambling too. Otherwise responsible Governments around the world are now looking at their unexpected windfalls from gambling taxes in recent years and wondering how to reduce their dependence on them.

This report in eGambling, the electronic journal of gambling issues, explains some of the complex issues facing the Government of Alberta in Canada.

This report from Ozwatch illustrates how approximately one third of Australia's billion gambling taxes may be from a mere 200,000 gambling 'addicts' and their families. Such gamblers lose thousands of dollars a year each on gambling, with thirty cents in every dollar to public revenue. They are disproportionately in low-income households.

As casinos and gaming machines and subsequently wireless handheld gamble-anywhere casinos become more accessible to lower income groups, the regressivity of gambling taxation worsens. In other words, most of the taxes are disproportionately borne by those who can least afford it.

So society is faced with a problem. With the world going wireless, and the Device-Formerly-Known-As-The-Mobile-Phone (DFKATMP) adding yet another popular product (casino gambling) to its growing feature set, the world's problem gamblers will soon be faced with the prospect of ever-present temptation of carrying a casino in their pocket.

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