There are several legal issues surrounding Online Gambling. Although a handful of online operators have shared data for research purposes, and some have adopted policies and strategies to detect risky players, there are no mandatory regulations on the practice. Further action is based on the discretion of operators and reliant upon operator-initiated actions. For this reason, it is important to know the laws and regulations in your own country before engaging in Internet gambling.
While single indicators for gambling problem emergence are rare, it is important to examine the number of player accounts to accurately predict the risk of developing a problem. Some game-specific characteristics may also be relevant to determining a causal relationship. Ideally, research focuses on diverse datasets, as most of the current studies focus on a single European gambling site. However, the results may not be applicable to other online gamblers. For this reason, researchers should study online gambling addiction and gambling disorders in diverse online communities.
Internet gambling is becoming more common in many jurisdictions. Legalizing and regulating Internet gambling provides an opportunity to protect consumers and increase tax revenue. Although participation in Internet gambling is still low, it is increasing rapidly in regulated sites. In Australia, for example, participation increased from one percent in 1999 to eight percent in 2011 and a recent study in the UK showed that 16.7% of respondents had engaged in some form of online gambling within the previous four weeks.