Anyways, one of these articles I recently came across was a piece on statements made by the Executive Director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, Carol O'Hare. The other piece was a news article about a woman who was crushed by her chimney and used the online chat feature of an internet gaming site to call for help.

A possible relation between the two articles, perhaps? Actually, no. I reference them both simply because, to me, they represent a contrast in two energies that are helping and hurting the online gambling industry as a whole.

Let's first take a look at what's hurting. Uh, you guessed it. The chimney falling on the lady. Ya, that's got to hurt. But what really hurts the credibility of the online gambling industry, however, is the fact that some bonehead actually wrote an article arguing that gambling in an online casino helps to save lives. Now, it would be one thing if he was joking around. But he wasn't! He actually played the card that went something like this: An elderly woman trapped underneath a collapsed chimney in her living room, logs into an online casino to ask for help via chat. Her pleas were answered by another player who then alerted authorities. There you have it. If you gamble at an online casino, you can help save lives and possibly even have your own life saved.

Who does this person think they are trying to convince to gamble at online casinos - eight year olds? Well, maybe so. And there you have it. BS like this does more damage to the online gambling industry than anything else. To content writers like this I say, "Stop trying to twist the news! It just shows how desperate and immoral you are - and it reflects on the industry. Idiots with a computer. That's all I can say".

Now, this other article about Carol O'Hare - that's another story. Here you have some objective and factual reporting citing an authority in the gambling arena. O'Hare, who as I mentioned, is the Executive Director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, recently went on record stating that "problem gambling is not going away simply because someone puts it in a corner...or takes it off the internet....Prohibition didn't work...and we have to continually focus on how to mitigate the circumstances problem gamblers are faced with, rather than regulating the problem out of existence".

Now that's a quote. And a great one for proponents of online gambling regulation at that. Who is more credible I ask? Carol O'Hare or some religious leader who blatantly states that online gambling causes addictions (and with no evidence to back it up)? I rest my case. I just hope those dopes out there trying to correlate online gambling with saving lives, will quiet down and give the industry a chance to gain the credibility it deserves.