Quebec committee to look at online gambling addiction

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by Change | 12 Jul 2010

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A new committee has been established in Quebec to look at the effects of online gambling.

A new advisory committee of independent experts is to be set up in Quebec, Canada, to look at the deleterious effects of online gambling addiction.

According to CBC, the committee is hoping to assess the issue after Loto-Quebec, the province's gaming agency, announced plans earlier this year to enter the online fray.

The body will be made up of professors from several of Quebec's universities and the director of a centre specialising in alcohol and gambling addiction.

It is expected that they will study the effects of the site - due to go live in September - and the games it offers on consumers over the next three years before submitting a report.

However, gambling critic Sol Boxenbaum dismissed the committee, saying that the worst effects of gambling addiction would already be felt by the time its report is finalised.

"Three years from now, you're looking at suicides, you're looking at bankruptcies, you're looking at all kinds of things that can go wrong," he told CBC.

Last month, research published in the Archives of General Psychiatry indicated that genetic factors could leave people more predisposed to needing gambling addiction support.

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