Gambling Industry Expert Outraged Over Kindt Analysis

Posted:17.05.2009, 06:28 Gambling Industry Expert Outraged Over Kindt Analysis

Gambling Industry Expert Outraged Over Kindt Analysis
http://www.onlinecasinoadvisory.com/casino-news/online/kindt-gambling-tome-rejected-by-peer-review-42756.htm

University of Illinois professor John Kindt is telling anyone who will listen that repeal of the UIGEA online gambling ban will destroy the US economy and the American way of life. But gaming analyst Sherman Bradley says Kindt is just another scare-tactic demagogue, intent on inventing horrifying scenarios to prevent objective study of Internet gambling.

US legislators are finally considering regulation of online casinos, as much for the money it would bring to tax coffers as for the supposedly philosophical imperatives of freedom and consumer protection. But Kindt argues it's a mistake.

“The revenue they would get is minuscule compared to the devastation it would bring to financial systems, stock markets, national security and people’s lives,” Kindt told the scientific website Physorg.com.

Yet Online Casino Advisory senior gambling analyst Bradley says Kindt makes statements of fact without any evidence to support them.

"Part of Kindt's rendition regarding national security is to claim soldiers will spend leisure time at casinos, where gambling is legal, and thus not be training for defense. This silly assertion could apply to going to movies, eating out, or making love to one's wife," says Bradley.

“This law (the UIGEA) was the result of 10 years of congressional hearings, where expert after expert warned of the dangers of gambling on the Internet,” says Kindt. “Online gambling is called the crack cocaine of creating new addicted gamblers,”

"These statements are simply false. Objective scientists, including Dr. Howard Shaffer of Harvard Medical School's Addiction Studies and Professor Dan Ross, director of the treatment of problem gambling in South Africa, have found, independent of each other, that online gambling is far less addictive than land-based gaming," Bradley responds.

"Further, the UIGEA was not a well-researched and publicly debated bill, but a last-second addition to a port security act that snuck the legislation through because there was no support for it as a free-standing measure."

Kindt claims research shows crime and gambling addictions multiply when gaming proliferates. But Bradley offers actual evidence to the contrary, rather than just making bold statements.

"Politicians and law enforcement in the area of Shreveport and Bossier City say their area is far less crime-stricken than fifteen years ago before casinos came, and the standard of living is much higher," offers Bradley. "Crime rates are significantly higher in the Disneyfied phoniness of Orlando than in the casino haven of Atlantic City."