Online Gambling Frustrates Hawaii’s Gambling Ban

Online Gambling Frustrates Hawaii’s Gambling Ban
By Josh Montez

Losing your money through online gambling is all too easy. Many websites offer specials and incentives to get you to click the button to “join now.” Keith Whyte with the National Council on Problem Gambling says trouble awaits those who succumb.

“And if you click there, you wind up in a whole world of trouble.”

Whyte says that’s the case for many people in Hawaii. He received more than 700 calls last year from Hawaii from people fighting gambling addictions. Many lost thousands online.

“Literally you can have someone gamble all night, come to their office, gamble all afternoon at their computer, and come home and gamble all night again and all from a simple modem and a PC.”

Kelly Rosati with the Hawaii Family Forum says online gambling makes a mockery of her state’s laws.

“The internet has made all kinds of things available to people in a quick and accessible way like never before and gambling is no exception to that.”

Whyte says the biggest battle in addictive online gambling is figuring out whom to go after.

“Most people who gamble on the internet do so alone and we know that’s a risk-factor. It’s also high-speed of play and you use credit.”

And until federal laws are in place to limit the scourge of online betting, anonymous gamblers will be getting a bad deal in Hawaii and on the mainland.

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