Byline: Robert MacMillan
About 20 percent of children-oriented online game sites sport Internet gambling advertisements, according to a survey released today by the Federal Trade Commission.
The survey also showed that children encounter few barriers to sites featuring Internet wagering, and that most sites "did not adequately disclose warnings about underage gambling prohibitions."
Another 20 percent of online gambling sites "contained no warning at all, and where warnings were disclosed they were difficult to find," the FTC said in a statement.
The result of a 200-Web site sweep, the FTC report said that sites popular among teenaged online gamers contain a disproportionate number of gambling ads. Included are gaming sites that specialize in action/adventure, sports and other "non-gambling" computer games, the commission said.
The report also said that most gaming sites lack "effective" blocking mechanisms to keep children away from online gambling, and some don't have any blocks. Many blocks were easy to circumvent, the survey added.
The FTC released the survey a week after a House committee approved a bill that would ban most forms of online gaming. Several efforts to enact an Internet gaming bill have failed in Congress over the past four years.
Net gambling has been identified not only as a source for gambling addiction and other ills that affect offline gamers, but as a venue for terrorists to launder money.
The survey was conducted with the American Psychiatric Association.
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