Is Wall Street Finally Seeing the Relevance of Online Gaming? a Message to Australia

19. Jul, 2010 0 Comments

An interesting article on the use of online gambling by economic analysts appeared recently in the US publication The Wall Street Journal, that paradigm of business reporting more closely associated with stock market news and international finance.

It seems a bunch of economists in the academic world have been turning to the fluctuations in sports betting to gain a clearer understanding as to how people’s rational thought processes react when making decisions. The insights into gamblers apparently provide some interesting prediction models for economists looking to forecast market movements.

Of course, those of us in online bingo kind of know that the markets (Wall Street, the London Stock Exchange) are nothing more than giant gambling enterprises no different than your average online bingo game except for one all important factor – online bingo players know they’re in a game; stock traders actually think they are in a controllable business.

The actual reason for most economists to take an interest in sports betting centers around how people react to new news entering the market. In this case, a goal scored in a football game often changes the way bets are being made on the game – this excites economists who see the chance to draw comparisons with world market activity.

My advice to economists – try taking in new information every time the ball is dropped in a free online bingo game to get an accelerated idea of how people react to new information entering a market place.

The news from Australia that its new government will start introducing new Internet legislation to stop children from accessing banned websites is another potential blow for online gaming, including online bingo games and online bingo halls.

While pornography is the main aim of this new legislation, online casinos will also be targeted and this adds yet another front in the attacks by governments on the right to choose your own form of entertainment. However, the effectiveness of trying to police such legislation via filters, as the Aussie government proposes, is bound to fail. This is because your average kid tends to be more computer-savvy than your average government legislator and will find a work-around to deal with a filter in less than a minute on average.

The only way to run an effective online gaming industry is to follow the UK lead and legislate a regulated environment. Online bingo in the UK enjoys probably the best environment in the world and this is reflected by an industry that practices excellent self-policing. Why? Because it’s in the industry’s best interests to do so.

My suggestion is that the new Aussie Labour government take a close look at the UK model for online gaming. It’s worked well here, it can work well there.

Written by Charlene Gray – Need the best online bingo games?