Online gambling 'could lead to a million addicts'

Up to one million people a year could become hooked on internet gambling because of a new law, a Birmingham addiction expert has claimed.

Professor Jim Orford, of Birmingham University, believes the Government is being "naive" and "playing dice" with people's health over its plans to liberalise gambling laws.

The Gambling Act 2005, which will fully come into force next September, relaxes some laws on the activity.

Prof Orford told the BBC's Panorama programme: "Gradually we're going to realise it's a much bigger problem than we thought.

"More people are going to know friends and family members who've got problems. Health authorities are going to be under pressure to provide treatment.

"We could be talking about a million people affected by it in any one period of 12 months, and that begins to put it on a par with drug addiction problems."

An average of 5.8 million people a month visited online gambling sites between April and September, according to the programme.

In May alone there were more than six million visitors to online gambling sites, the research by internet media and marker research company Nielsen/Net Ratings found.

Independent research commissioned by the Government claims that there are only one million regular UK online gamblers, the programme said.

Minister for Sport Richard Caborn told Panorama: "We have, I believe, acted responsibly in bringing an Act on to the statute book which has three basic principles on which it is based; protecting the vulnerable, keeping it crime-free, and making sure that those who have a bet will be paid out and it'll be a fair bet.

"That is what it is predicated on because we believe that gambling is now part of our leisure industry."