Nevada Shelves Online Gambling Plans For Now Based on Survey

Details of the study conducted by the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) International Gaming Institute, which was commissioned by the Nevada Gaming Control Board to study whether Nevadans are gambling on the Internet and to investigate their habits and attitude toward the activity, are now in the public domain and contain surprising results.

Recognizing that online gambling itself is not illegal, and that the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) permits states to control gambling on the Internet within their own borders, and in response to interest shown by technology companies and other parties wishing to explore setting up online gambling sites in Nevada to cater only to Nevada residents, Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander commissioned the UNLV study in 2006.

"Anecdotally, we were told the activity was going on," Neilander said. "That led to a policy question; if this is something that is going on, isn't this something we ought to regulate and tax? We felt you really can't make decisions without appropriate research."

Such online gambling sites for Nevadans would also require action by the Nevada Legislature.

Last Friday, the Institute presented its findings to a special joint meeting of the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission (which would write any policy regarding Internet gaming by Nevada residents).

NEVADANS ARE NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN ONLINE GAMBLING

Gambling Institute director Bo Bernhard told the Nevada Gaming Control Board that respondents were surveyed in January 2007. Follow-up in-depth interviews were conducted throughout the year with 27 of the respondents, including 18 active online gamblers.

According to reports in The Las Vegas Review Journal (LVRJ), over 96 percent of the 1,000 respondents in the survey said they were not really interested in online gambling.

"It became clear that events contemporaneous with our work may have chilling effects on the patterns of online play," Bernhard is quoted as telling the Board. "This research was conducted during an interesting point in time."

The survey began just 3 months after the passage of the UIGEA and the same month that Neteller co-founders were arrested and US Dept. of Justice crackdown on several sports betting sites and their execs continued during the year.

Of the 3.7 percent of respondents in Nevada who replied that they do gamble online, most play poker or wagered on sports, are predominately male, and are not completely comfortable with the integrity of online gaming.

They also noted that gambling online does not affect their gambling habits inside Nevada [land] casinos, which we surmise must have been a relief to the physical casinos.

TIMID ABOUT REPORTING THEIR QUESTIONABLY LEGAL ACTIVITY

Director Bernhard, who oversaw the yearlong study with assistant director Tony Lucas, warned regulators that respondents are not always forthcoming when asked about what he called "deviant behavior." The number of Nevadans gambling online may actually be higher because respondents could have been reluctant to admit to a questionably legal activity.

Nevertheless, the number of Nevada respondents saying they had gambled online was statistically similar to the number of national respondents who participated in a 2006 online gaming survey conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based American Gaming Association.

Bernhard said those respondents that had gambled online liked the activity's low cost. Others use online gambling as a way to teach themselves about different games of chance. The survey also found that nearly nine out of 10 Nevadans who had not gambled online said they were "not at all likely" to participate in online gambling even if the state licensed and regulated the activity.

Current online gamblers, Bo Bernhard said, had strong concerns about the legal status and the unregulated nature of the activity and would have more of a comfort level if Nevada regulated online gambling.

Bernhard said the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points because of the large sampling.

Control Board member Mark Clayton said that because the study's findings showed such a small number of gamblers wagering online, he didn't believe Nevada casino operators would undertake the effort toward setting up Internet gaming sites within Nevada borders for Nevada residents.

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