UIGEA: Internet Gambling Decline Amongst College Students

The PPA recently announced on its website that internet gambling among college-aged students (from ages 18 to 22) has declined from 5.8 percent in 2006 to 1.5 percent in 2007. Most gambling opponents and advocates of the UIGEA seem to believe that the bill might be directly responsible for such a decline.

However, Keith Whyte of the National Council of Problem Gambling has said that "while the numbers appear to coincide with the enactment of the UIGEA, the only definitive result the study showed was that the UIGEA affected the availability of such sites." This would make sense, considering the bill really scared a lot of U.S. friendly rooms to eventually pull out of the states for the time being.

But after a year now, more and more online gambling sites have been rebounding. In fact, online poker sites have gained much steam since the bill has passed, and industry levels have been picking up a lot as of late. Poker legend Doyle Brunson even re-launched his famed online poker site ' aptly named Doyle's Room ' back into the U.S. market after a few-month hiatus.

So is UIGEA really working as far as keeping kids away from gambling' Interesting question after the recent news regaurding Andy McLeod's Full Tilt Poker Ban...

Still, there's no definitive answer in my opinion What most people are finding out is that internet gambling is something that should be enjoyed by all ages, and that saving America's youth from playing online isn't something that can be universally solved with a direct ban.

The aforementioned study was a year-long effort provided by the River City Group to study the after-effects of UIGEA amongst college youths.