As many as one million individuals each year might become addicted to
gambling on the Net due to a new piece of legislation, a professional has
suggested. Professor Jim Orford, of Birmingham University, feels that the
Government is “naive” and “playing dice” with the health of some members of
the public over its proposals to change gambling laws. The Gambling Act
2005, which will completely come into effect in September 2007, liberalises
some of the laws on this pastime. Prof Orford informed the BBC’s Panoroma
series:”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.”