WINNIPEG - Manitoba's NDP government is going to take a piece of the action when it comes to online gambling.
The province plans to have its own online casino, offering poker and other games, up and running by early next year.
Manitoba is not making gambling more available, Lotteries Minister Steve Ashton said Thursday, but only keeping up with an industry that has already spread far and wide.
"There are 2,000 sites currently (and) an estimated $37 million that goes into online gaming, much of it which goes out of the province," Ashton said. "We view (the new site) as a way of keeping that in the province."
The site will be run in conjunction with the British Columbia government, which opened its own online casino in 2010.
Five per cent of net revenues will be used to fund gambling addiction programs, Ashton said — up from the normal two per cent take from traditional gambling venues.
The government predicts the online site will bring in $1.5 million in its first year and about $17 million a year by 2018.
Ashton touted the government site as a safer, regulated alternative to offshore web sites.
"In the case of these sites, you can't really know who's behind them," he said.
Ontario and Quebec are also setting up online gambling sites.
Nova Scotia's NDP government, however, decided against the idea last year. The province's finance minister, Graham Steele, said online gambling would lure people into gambling who would otherwise not risk their money.
A top researcher in the area says online gambling can lead to more addiction, simply because it is always available.
"Online gambling sort of maxes out the availability because it's there all the time, all day, from the comfort of your own living room," said Nigel Turner, a psychologist who specializes in problem gambling at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto.
However, Turner adds, online gambling as a format can be less addictive than the tables at a casino.
"People who are (problem) gambling are often gambling because they want to escape ... and that means going out, so the casino environment tends to pander to that."
"You hear about everybody's win, you hear the ka-ching, ka-ching of all the wins and the bells and whistles and so on, so I think it's a much more enveloping experience."
Turner said he doesn't buy the argument from governments that they have to setup online gambling sites because offshore ones exist already.
"The idea of discouraging people from gambling ... by educating them about the futility of throwing their money away when your odds are just stacked against you the way that all gambling is — that apparently never occurs to these governments.
"They're going to save people from Antigua by having them spend their money in Manitoba instead."
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