Now that Canada has opened its doors to the online gambling industry, he continues to do its research in hopes that problem gambling does not become a problem for the future. as witnessed by many other countries, gambling can spread like wildfire and become an addiction that is beyond the control of the government. Now that Canada has opened its doors to gambling, they have created many preventative measures in order to be proactive about their gambling status.
The negative stigma of gambling has always been that once it is introduced is difficult to go back on and prevent drastic measures. Such is the case with drinking, in the United States, the drinking age is 21 whereas in many other countries it is only 18. Other countries have witnessed that it is not necessarily the each that provides the issues with the gambling or drinking. In fact, a current study based out of Edmonton, Alberta has shown that more residents of Alberta are participating in drinking than gambling.
The studies have gone on to prove that just because the gambling doors were open recently does not mean that people are flocking to the venues or to the online sites in order to drown their sorrows with a quick fix of gambling. In fact over the past year revenue for gambling has dropped nearly 5% down to $25 billion. The 2008 numbers produced nearly $26.3 billion bid for showing the record decrease. Through this decrease it shows that the public is not focusing its attention on gambling, however the drinking rates still continue to rise. Even with the procession in place, drinking sales revenue was approximately $2 billion last year in Alberta. Even with the staggering numbers, the government is still being criticized for opening up more gambling video lottery terminals and casinos. Out of the $25 billion collected in gambling revenue last year, $15.5 billion came from slot machines, the remaining $8.9 billion came from video lottery terminals.
