In the past few years, there has been a significant increase in both the popularity and numbers of people playing online slot games. On average, people are playing on nearly one hundred machines every day which breaks down to over six million individual players. At first glance, these statistics might seem impressive and argue why they should be legal. Though it seems a simple case of higher numbers meaning better opportunity for profits, this is not always the case. The appeal of these games are based on the fact that they are not legal and therefore can provide an element of excitement that is lacking in slot games found in land-based venues.

Using an offshore server means no rules or regulations, so people can play whatever slot game they like without worrying about breaking any laws. However, this means there is no government oversight or protection for players, so the situation is very different to those casinos where gambling is legal. Firstly, these sites lack security which could mean that winnings could be lost due to scams and other technical issues such as computer viruses which could easily be spread online.

Then there is the issue of slot machine safeguards. There are several regulations that govern the daftar slot online games played in land-based casinos and these can be considered a safeguard against fraud. These include rules about prizes and the amount that can be won, as well as slot machine safeguards like the one-armed bandit, or VLT (Video Lottery Terminal). In online casino games, though, there are no such regulations nor any slots with security safeguards. This means that people playing online slot games do so completely at their own risk and are fully aware that they could lose everything if they were to encounter technical issues or scams which were to occur.

Online slot games have been blamed for damaging people’s lives. The problem is so severe that a court case was brought against a man who was found gambling for over two years. Then there were the incidents of serial slot machine players in New Jersey and Missouri, where some gamblers were found to be spending up to fourteen hours a day playing. Examples of these things happening are too many to list here but you can consider it unfortunate that this type of gambling has become so prevalent when it should not be legal.

This kind of activity is not limited to slot machines but can also be found in other online games. The increase in the use of online poker games, for instance, has been linked with the increasing prevalence rates for pathological gambling (PG). When it comes to seeking help, PG has the highest percentage of any other type of addiction. It has become so serious that it was identified as a mental illness in 2013 by the World Health Organization and is predicted to affect around twenty-five per cent of gamblers at some point in their lives. The problems are not confined to those who play online poker games or slot machines.

There have also been studies showing that online gambling can increase the chances of people developing a gambling addiction and developing or exacerbating other disorders such as anxiety, depression, stress and even cyberdeviance.