Gambling on the internet: A brief note

With the number of online computer users more than doubling over the past two years, it has been alleged that social pathologies are beginning to surface in cyberspace (e.g. Griffiths, 1995a; 1996a). The internet is currently under mass expansion and it is estimated that, there are over 30 million people current users. Studies of the internet, its users and their potential excesses should therefore be of psychological concern not least of all because of its sudden growth and heightened public awareness. It should also be of interest to those of us who research into gambling because there is now an abundance of virtual gambling sites proliferating the internet (e.g. The Global Casino, Virtual Vegas, The House of Hazard, The Fox Casino). For some time I have been carrying out research in to the area of "technological addictions" (Griffiths, 1995a; b). Technological addictions are operationally defined as non-chemical (behavioural) addictions which involve human-machine interaction. They can either be passive (e.g. television) or active (e.g. computer games) and usually contain inducing and reinforcing features which may contribute to the promotion of addictive tendencies. There is little in the way of an established academic literature on technological addictions, but possible activities that could be included under this category are television addiction, computer addiction (e.g.