Ever since the birth of online casinos, the discussion has erupted about the dangers and disadvantages of them. Some governments are trying to stop people from gambling in online casinos and anti-gambling organizations are warning people al around the globe for the threat of online casinos. But is all of this really necessary? Players of online casinos know that there is a big chance that they might lose money, but if this doesn't stop them from playing why should anybody else try to make them stop?

There is not much of a difference between the video games in a land based casino than the video games in online casinos. Both of them require a lot of luck and usually the luck is on the side of the operators of the video games. So why prohibit playing the games in online casinos and not in land based casinos?

It all seems a bit strange. Why go to so much trouble to protect people from their own stupidity? On the other hand, a gambling addiction is just as recognized as a drugs or alcohol addiction. Protecting people from playing in online casinos however, is an almost impossible job. Most people play secretly in online casinos and keep their addiction secret. In most cases even the family-members are not aware of the problems. The 24/7 availability and the lack of supervision of online casinos contribute also to the problem.

Especially in the United States, there is an everlasting battle against online casinos. The government finally realized that keeping people from playing in online casinos is a lost cause, so now they are using different ways to win the battle. One way is that the US government is trying to prohibit credit card companies to cooperate with online casinos operations. Another method is banning online gambling related advertisement from websites, a not easy to control measurement.

Gambling at online casinos and betting at online sports-books is quickly becoming a favorite pastime of many of America’s teenagers and college students, some who are under the legal age to bet online. But often, with this easy access to online casinos and the large sums of money available for betting, gambling online comes at a very high price for those involved.
The pitfalls and dangers of gambling, whether offline or online, are obvious, but the recent explosion of online casinos has seen more and more youth turning to betting. A 23 year old graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, identified only as Ryan to protect his identity, spoke about the addiction of online casinos.
Ryan was a compulsive gambler who accumulated debts of over $20,000 by gambling at online casinos throughout college. Despite his attendance to the University of Pennsylvania, one of America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, he found himself playing cards with friends harmlessly one day, and then racking up large debts at online casinos the next.
“It was a social activity that was accepted by our parents,” he said. “They thought ‘They’re under the same roof we can keep an eye on them’.” But many parents are wrong about their children’s addictions to online casinos. With the popularity of poker tournaments on TV like the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour, kids have begun to turn to online casinos and get themselves into serious problems.
Since gambling at casinos online doesn’t seem as dangerous as trying drugs or drinking too much alcohol, many kids don’t equate it on the same level of addiction and thus they have no idea of the risks and the habits they are forming.
Kids watch poker on TV and see the glamour of big cash prizes, large tournament pots, fancy cars, and beautiful women, and this cloudy view often translates to big losses on online casinos.
To compound the problem, parents are often unaware that their children are gambling at online casinos at all. Some parents even encourage that their children play cards during their leisure time, believing that it will keep them from doing more destructive things with their time.
Ryan’s mom and dad, for example, admitted that they loved opening the doors to their home to Ryan’s friends from school for poker nights. They were happy to see their child at home, to see what they were doing, sitting around the dining room table, having a good time.
Nevertheless the innocence of the house game with friends often turns into a serious habit of frequenting online casinos for many of America’s youth.
Ryan’s parents discovered their son’s addiction to online casinos when Ryan called his father at two or three in the morning confessing his $18,000 debt. Ryan’s hidden addiction to online casinos had led to serious ramifications. The lesson to be learned remains: youth must be aware of addictions to online casinos and take extreme precaution.

In a way, it is the same fight as governments and organizations fought (and in some countries still fight) against porn sites. For years and years governments have tried to prohibit porn sites from existing on the internet, claiming that it provoked inappropriate behavior. But after many freedom of speech and expression discussion and the realization that there are too many online casinos sites to fight, most of them gave up. 

With over 17,000 online gambling sites on the internet, the US government is getting quite desperate. The 40 year old Federal Wire Act is suppose to ban online sport gambling in every US state, but the Act is not really applicable on casinos online. The fact that almost all of the online casinos keep their operations outside the United States is also not making it easier for American legislators play online casino | online currency trading, forex | online sportsbook.