Online Gamblers To Face Quiz

The booming online gaming industry is hoping to weed out addicts by offering a "scientifically developed questionnaire" on poker and casino sites.

The survey, which is designed to show whether users have a gambling problem, is part of a first attempt to self-regulate the army of websites offering poker and casino games that have sprung up in recent years.

Andrew Beveridge, chief executive of industry body eCOGRA, which has set up the regulations, said that filling in the questions would be voluntary and that no-one would be banned from the sites.

His organisation, whose name stands for eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance, claims to represent over half of the online gaming industry.

"You can't just go out and tell someone they have a gambling problem," he said. "The person has to recognise that themselves."

In addition, to encourage users to answer questions, participating websites are training their staff to recognise patterns of gambling that may indicate that users have a problem.

The questionnaire - which has been developed by the University of Chicago - asks gamblers questions such as "on one or more of the times when you tried to stop, cut down or control your gambling, were you restless or irritable?"

A score of five or higher on the seventeen questions is consistent with "pathological gambling", according to the university.

Teresa Tunstall, head of development at addiction helpline Gamcare, said that although she would "rather the questionnaire was there than not", she couldn't see it having the desired effect.

"Once people have got to that stage they are in denial," she said. "We need to raise awareness from a younger age."

Gamcare carries out annual research into gambling addiction, and Ms Tunstall said that the average gambling debt admitted to by callers using the service was £25,000.

Nearly half of the callers to the Gamcare helpline were betting online and 29pc were gaming online, last year.

Ms Tunstall said that this was a number that was increasing, and that online gaming and betting was particularly worrying because it was carried out in isolation.

"At least if you're going out you have to get dressed and go to the betting shop, but with this you don't even have to get out of bed," she said. "In a casino someone can tap you on the shoulder and say 'let's go home' but this is just so isolated."

The eCogra regulations also aim to cut out underage gambling by checking names and birthdates against Government records, but Ms Tunstall said that the safeguards that were currently in place were inadequate, and pointed to a recent study that the organisation had undertaken with the National Children's Homes charity (NCH).

"One of the directors brought in his 16-year old daughter in and she typed in all of her correct information, just changing her age to 18. Only five picked up on it," she said.

Last year the annual turnover of the gambling industry rose 25pc to £78 billion.

Official statistics on online gambling are sparse, but experts assume that a large amount of this growth is coming from internet sites.