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ip: Offshore Internet gambling taking *off* -- FROM risks
From: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 1997 17:30:33 -0400
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 97 9:56:21 PDT From: "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann () csl sri com> Subject: Offshore Internet gambling taking *off* There are now at least three dozen Internet gambling houses, the latest of which -- Bet the Net -- begins operating as an Internet casino from Dominica in the Caribbean in about two weeks. The expected revenues from all such Internet operations is estimated at $8 billion by the year 2000, where the current total take for U.S. casinos is currently $23 billion. [Source: Bloomberg News, *San Francisco Chronicle*, 1 Aug 1997, B2.] The risks include bogus virtual casinos whose payoffs turn out to be more virtual than real, semi-legitimate casinos working credit-card scams on the side, glorious opportunities for money laundering, serious gambling debts accumulated in your name by a masquerader, spawning of serious undetected addictive behavior that might otherwise be observed (on the Internet no one knows you are a gambler, except for the casino), your 9-year-old gambling with your credit card -- especially if your browser automagically inserts your credit information -- and so on into the night. As a second-order effect, massive illegal activities could also lead to attempted restrictions on the good system security and cryptography necessary to conduct legitimate Internet commerce. In any event, whether or not you bet on the Net, don't bet on the Net being adequately secure! You are already gambling with the weaknesses in our computer-communication infrastructures, but NetBet could raise the ante considerably. Caveat aleator.
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