OPINION:
With the rise of cheating bots, the potential for money laundering and terrorism financing, and most recently, the revelation that Kim Jong-un maintains an online gambling hacker army to help fund his regime in North Korea, the integrity of virtual casino style games has long been in question. Now, skepticism has spread to the online gambling corporations themselves. Earlier this month, our very worst fears about the predatory practices of these corporations were confirmed in a new expose by Business Insider. Screenshots obtained by the publication reveal how internet casinos actively lure the most vulnerable among us.
Online gambling companies were busted for prominently featuring their advertisements on websites geared specifically to young children and gambling addicts. These internet casinos offered visitors to Girlsgogames.com — which ranked among the top five most popular websites for kids — free bonus money for signing up on their platforms.
Right alongside games like “Mermaid Princesses,” “My Fairy Tale Unicorn,” and “Coloring Book With Animals”? Flashy ads encouraging players to “claim your bonus” with “no deposit necessary!” The luring of the helpless by online gambling giants currently operating in America aligns seamlessly with the shameful strategies employed by their counterparts abroad — some of which have stooped to using candy and cartoon characters as a way of marketing to minors.
The screenshots also caught internet casinos bombarding gamblers with advertisements on an article titled “Twelve Ways to Stop Gambling Addiction Forever.” In a previously unreported development that builds on Business Insider’s expose, the very same online gambling ads were spotted on websites with headlines such as “How to get help for gambling addiction, the signs to look out for and how to stop,” and “Expert view: How to tell if your gambling has become a problem.”
These tactics of temptation would be akin to a liquor store offering free bottles of alcohol at an AA meeting. With no restrictions in place, the most susceptible populations are being lured at the height of their vulnerability. To online gambling corporations, our kids are clearly seen as customers and problem gamblers as profit. Most worrisome: These corporations are already engaging in such ruthless schemes when they should be trying to prove a business concept in its infancy with exemplary behavior. Imagine how far the companies would go if their industry was legalized nationwide. The World Wide Web would soon become the Wild, Wild West.
Putting our kids — as well as those attempting to overcome their debilitating gambling addictions — only a single click away from virtual casinos is a danger compounded by the results of a parental survey released in February by USA TODAY. Nearly half of parents, according to Common Sense Media and SurveyMonkey, worry their child is addicted to mobile devices.
As online gambling companies work to transform every phone and tablet in America into a casino open 24/7, one addiction is being exploited to fuel another. And while USA TODAY appropriately encourages families to explore parental controls, it is clear that internet casinos are bent on evading them.
With online gambling spreading across our country, the industry wants worried parents of young children to feel as though the fight is over. But there is good news. In contrast to the one unelected Department of Justice lawyer who single-handedly reversed decades of precedent that prevented online gambling, there is a broad, bipartisan coalition around the push to restore it. Now it is time for leaders in Washington, D.C., and in statehouses across the country to take action and stop the online gambling industry before it targets even more of our children and our most vulnerable citizens.
• Blanche Lincoln, a former U.S. senator from Arkansas, is the founder of Lincoln Policy Group and works as a leading advocate for the Coalition to Stop internet Gambling.
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