Online gambling-instant degratification

I think that one of the stranger jobs I worked was in March of 2006. It was a post-dotcom boom dotcom job. Essentially one guy developed his brainchild during the dotcom boom of the late nineties and it didn't take off until almost ten years later. Which was unfortunate, because the idea sucked in the first place, so take away the only factor with merit and it was pretty much dead. The idea was an online scratch card site.

Now, I am not a big gambler. But I do purchase the occasional scratch card. And I have to say, the fun part of buying scratch cards is the actual physical scratching part. It's kind of hard to do that via a computer.

Another problem was that due to the shady nature of online casinos, credit cards were declined quite often. And since gambling, particularly online gambling, is all about the instant gratification, no one wants to go through the lengthy process of opening a Neteller account and waiting however long for the email that activates your account. And then waiting the forty-eight hour period before you can use the money you've deposited for security purposes.

It was just a royal pain. And the vast majority of the clientele were not too bright. It was a frustrating experience for both the customer service rep (me) trying to explain the process and to the client who was just not getting it.

The other issue, of course, is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act itself, which was the law passed by the US that prohibits online gambling. Online casinos took a steep dive from that one around the time that I started working. Even payments via third parties like PayPal, MoneyBookers, and Neteller were not successful in the effort to circumvent the law. So what's the moral of the story?

If you're going to gamble, go to Vegas already, dammit!

By: Chatch
Published: 06/19/08