Malta's Online Gaming/gambling industry - are we winners or losers?

These days there is a contagious disease spreading throughout the world and Malta is not immune. 

The growth of online gaming/gambling companies is explosive. You can be forgiven, not to have noticed their pernicious presence because they are usually to be found in office space not immediately apparent unless you start looking for them. For those of you who have ever thought of buying property, it must've struck you that suddenly you noticed for sale signs down side streets, at the top of apartment blocks, hidden down rural lanes or in newspapers in classified adds. Now that I've drawn your attention to the existence of these businesses, which encourage gaming/gambling, you might suddenly be shocked at the extent to which they have set up shop on this Island.

So what? You may ask! Surely they provide much-needed employment to a workforce that might otherwise have to leave the island to find a job. In addition, they pay valuable taxes to this country at a time when European countries are desperate to rebuild their economies.

So basically three questions need to be asked. How many exactly are we talking about? How many employees do they have and thirdly exactly what do they contribute to the economy? There is a fourth question. Exactly what damage they do society? How many people become addicted to their services and what is the fallout from these addictions.

In other words, do they actually end up costing us more money than they are worth? Many businesses fall into this category. For example, the tobacco industry causes the deaths of millions and yet argues strongly and effectively that it also substantially contributes, through taxes, to global healthcare finances. Since smoking kills more people than drinking and all other drugs combined, arguing that your industry is contributing to the health and well-being of citizens is a bit of a stretch. But the fast food industry along with food producers in the developed world have deliberately played a role in boosting obesity into epidemic proportions. The developed world is voraciously eating itself to death while the third world is suffering from starvation and malnutrition.

So obviously, addiction, whether that be food/alcohol/tobacco/sex or even gambling, is big business. Why focus on gambling when tobacco causes many more deaths? Well, our youth are the future and as such are a precious commodity indeed. The numbers of youth being targeted by gambling companies are breathtaking. The life consequences can be catastrophic. People used to complain that they worked all their life until 75 and when they retired got a watch and a poor pension in recompense. Today even the unemployed are entangled in the gambling business. For workers, the addiction can steal from them even the basic hard-won salary they earn and leave them debt-ridden and trapped. So what! I hear you ask. That is their folly, their choice! But is it?

These businesses target their prey at younger and younger ages. Just as the alcohol business design drinks for younger and younger clientele so too these gambling businesses are getting in earlier and earlier. If they can pounce at that fragile adolescence/post-adolescence stage when long-term consequences cease to be a discouragement to immediate choices, they're literally onto a sure thing. Baiting them with free money to start betting is a common practice. Additional money is given to those who introduce their friends and family to the sport. Loans are sometimes given to ensure that lack of funds does not become a handicap to this profitable addiction. Sometimes the interest rates on such loans provide an even larger part of the business profits.

Consulting the MGA Malta Gaming Authority website at http://www.mga.org.mt/gaming-sectors/remote-gaming/licensed-operators/ There are apparently 592 businesses who are licensed operators.  Given that it produces 8000 jobs and pays 52 million a year in taxes this gravy train is not going to stop anytime soon.  Since three of the earlier questions, posed, have been answered the fourth remains.  Perhaps gaming, unlike gambling, is not so bad?  What harm is playing games online, no one gets hurt surely?  It's just entertainment!  Unfortunately, addiction is not good for most people but especially for adolescents.  Online gaming addiction has been found to do something funny to their brains! 

A recent peer reviewed article on online gaming addiction http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0053055 gives worrisome findings.  It seems to show that structural differences occur in the cortical thickness of the brain between adolescents with online gaming addiction and normal subjects; This thickness was detected via High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scans and coincided with impaired cognitive control ability.  In layman’s words it appears that addiction to online gaming messes with the brain in adolescents in scary ways.

There are forces at work that influence society in fundamental ways for the better or the worse.  The question is if these influences bring both financial rewards but also substantial damage to members of our society what should we do?