A new report into online gambling has found that players in Australia and New Zealand bet more money over the Internet than those from any other nation in the world.

Professors Robert Wood and Robert Williams from the University of Lethbridge in Canada surveyed more than 20,000 adults from 105 nations for their study and found that antipodean players wagered an average of $306 online every month.

'Australian Internet gamblers do report higher average monthly gambling spending than the overall average we observed among our sample,' said Wood.

'This would suggest that Australian Internet gamblers do indeed spend more on gambling compared with Internet gamblers from most other countries.'

According to a report from The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, the results are five times what punters in Australia and New Zealand put through land-based poker machines and has prompted renewed calls for a ban on online gambling because its alllows players to bet using credit.

The study from the Alberta-based researchers also found that the prevalence of problem gambling was four times higher for Internet gamblers than those who play by more traditional methods.

Gerard Byrne, Problem Gambling Service Coordinator for The Salvation Army, told the newspaper that he was not surprised by the figures and called on the Federal Government to ban credit-based betting.

'People are certainly reporting more and more usage of online gambling,' said Byrne.

'I'm not surprised New South Wales is near the top in problem online gambling. We've got a culture where gambling is the state pastime. We would encourage bans on any capability to gamble on credit and believe the Federal Government should take a lead on this.'


Source: iGamingBusiness.com