It has been recommended in a report recently released by the Task Force on College Gambling Policies that college administrators should deal with gambling and with gambling addictions, as a health problem. In addition the report also suggests that schools prepare a plan for restricting on campus gambling and for providing treatment and support for those who are demonstrating serious problems with their gambling activities.

Christine Reilly, Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders’ Executive Director, which is located in Beverly, Massachusetts in the United States says that the institute believes that it is very important for schools to send a unambiguous, integrated message about what actually stands as being acceptable behavior. She says that it is very common for schools to have separate and different rules covering alcohol usage and still other rules with regard to gambling. She says that the institute thinks that this is an issue that colleges should deeply consider.

Peter Emerson, the chairman of the task force releasing the report says to in regard to the issues involved. It is his belief that if a student shows up at a university health service complaining of a physical problem such as a kidney disease or a broken or fractured hip, the college bends over backward to help the student, but if it is a case of some form of addiction, that is treated differently.

In addition, Reilly says that the available data are too old to use to apply as a means for determining the ways in which online gambling can affect student gambling habits. There is yet another factor that is working to complicate the data collected by the task force study and that is that everyone knows that online activity is readily available to most students at colleges and universities. In order to augment their online businesses, it is a known fact that online gambling operators are working to target the younger demographic. In addition to this availability of to online gambling their a laptop computer there is also the fact that today such contact is easily available through the use of mobile phones and there is the advent of high speed broadband both of which have created for the online gambling industry, a huge new group of players. It is generally agreed by all that there are in fact real problems and that in the long run it is better to bring those problems to the surface so as to help in their solution. Many believe that recognizing and admitting to a problem goes a long way to finding its solution. Up until now, college administrators have been sleeping at the wheel having not adjusted their policies to address this alarming trend.

In its 2009 the funder of the National Center for Responsible Gaming, which is the American Gaming Association, reported that last year commercial brick and mortar casinos in the USA took in $32.54 billion in gambling revenue. The portion that is contributed by the online gambling industry's is not taken into consideration. It is important that the schools respond to the suggested program and truly begin to do something responsible.

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