Will Greed Stifle The Growth Of Online Gambling?
Added: Jan. 5, 2015
Naturally this sort of question could trigger endless hours of debate. Yet if you have been paying attention as of late you may be starting to worry about the state of sports betting and online gambling in general. You see, as with any sort of activity like sports betting or even online casino action there is at least some level of trust involved.
For example, suppose you show up at your favorite online casino. You happily open up your wallet and deposit some of your hard earned money into your account so you can engage in some real money play. Not wanting to think about it so much today, you decide to take it easy with a couple of rounds of online slot machines. You win some and you lose some but overall you have had a good time of it.
Yet, now imagine how you would feel if the next morning you turned on CNN News and learned that federal officials had shut down this same online casino operation for allegations of rigged games. Would that not cause a sickening feeling deep down in your gut? For most people, the answer is a resounding yes. In other words, the point is this: no matter where you hang out in the online gambling world, there has to be a level of trust between the online casino player and the online gambling operator. Once this trust is violated for whatever reason, that player is never going back there. Worse still, that same player may decide that online casinos are a bad idea in general and choose to spend his/her time and money elsewhere.
Ouch! That is definitely not the scenario that proponents of online casinos want to have occur. Get this; it is not just the online casino sites that have to be concerned about this issue, it is also the online sports betting sites. Here is a good example that makes this point crystal clear.
Did you see the most recent news coming from Vietnam. Yes, it is true that Vietnam is a country that is famous worldwide for illicit gambling activity. Vietnam also makes the top of the list for sports teams that knowingly (for a payout of course) throw the match. Lately this all came to a head when Vietnam sented Vissai Ninh Binh soccer players to 30 month jail terms for “fixing the match”. Uggh!
Well at least Vietnam is cracking down on the match fixers. But that may be too little too late. Who in their right mind would even contemplate placing an online sports bet on anything to do with Vietnam?
Conclusion: as you can see trust is a key component of a growing online gambling industry. Hopefully, the online casinos and sports betting sites will realize this and take every step possible to build and maintain this trust.