Will's Web Watch: 'Kids are gambling... quick, blame the web!'

When I was perhaps 16, or maybe 17, I remember the bookie around the corner from my school requesting that a group of us remove our school blazers and ties if we wanted to continue frequenting his premises for fear our age-betraying attire would land him in trouble.

As such, I'm surprised to hear today that underage gambling is actually being blamed on the internet as my experience predates the arrival of the web by a few years.

But then as a society we've always looked for something to blame and preferably it's something which already evokes suspicion and concern.

Music has traditionally been the great 'catch all' in terms of targeting blame for society's ills. From rock and roll in the fifties and sixties up to modern day pariahs such as Eminem, parents and the authorities have always been on the look-out for 'somebody else' to blame for delinquency of any sort. Anybody but them.

Nowadays the internet is also filling that role admirably. The web has become liable for many problems with 'the kids these days' if you believe the likes of children's charity NCH - an outspoken critic of the internet's corrupting influences.

My concern is that whenever things go quiet at NCH they seem to find another charge to level against the internet - knowing that blaming the web will prove popular with many mainstream media organisations.

While a spokesman for NCH today expressed regret that "poor levels of journalism" have seen other media use its research as 'a stick to beat the internet', I can't help thinking they won't lose too much sleep over the coverage this latest report has received on the BBC and in many newspapers.

Today it is online bookies who are being dragged through the mud for 'letting children gamble' after one 16-year-old was able to register with 30 online bookies out of 37 tested.

Note the criticism is not of the banks issuing children as young as 11 with debit cards and not the government which almost a decade into the internet gambling boom is still to introduce its Gambling Act. Nor is it of the parents who have lost track of their children's activities and finances.

In truth, all four of the above parties, including the bookies who allow payment by controversial Solo and Electron cards, must take the blame - if there is any blame to apportion - but my greater concern is for the tendency to 'blame the internet' and assume that's the end of the discussion and the only root cause of any problem.

Because what does this achieve? Nothing. Children will be no better off or any better protected. The 'buck' stops with the internet and the discussion stops with it. The wider problems of which this is just a symptom won't go away as long as those involved in addressing them are this lazy in their thinking.

And this was a particularly lazy piece of research.

Are children really gambling online? By its own admission NCH doesn't appear to know. Certainly a great many have problems with gambling offline and slot machines in arcades and pubs account for the largest share but NCH couldn't confirm numbers or offer an indication as to how many under-18s are actually gambling online.

There is also a large question mark over the credibility of the research when the 16-year-old cited in the report is the daughter of NCH internet consultant John Carr. This was a fact not mentioned in the report itself.

Surely the daughter of an internet-savvy campaigner intent on proving a specific point is hardly representative of the average 16-year-old child.

The findings understandably met with criticism in the online gambling sector where typically bookies tend to do what they can to clear up anything that may blemish their reputation. (Can the banks and the government really say the same? Get back to me when the Gambling Bill comes into force in around 18 months time.) The bookies I have spoken to today have already closed loopholes in their verification systems.

Blue Square is one company which had already stopped accepting payment by the controversial Solo and Electron cards. But Ed Pownall, the company's press officer, also believes the issue is being blown well out of proportion.

Pownall asked me today: "Does anybody really think the playgrounds of Britain are filled with groups of children discussing who will win at Goodwood?"

Probably not.

Like others he also rejected the broadest claims of the NCH research and questioned its methodology. The research tested how many sites "were unable to block access of an underage player at point of registration", according to the wording of the report. Pownall said: "While it may be easy for children to set up an account it is very hard for them to actually carry on and bet." Other bookies made a similar point.

Perhaps the government and the likes of NCH would be better off questioning their own findings and their own priorities.

After all, why would the nation's youth be going online to gamble when there are so many other things to spend their money on like alcohol, cigarettes and drugs - not to mention the aforementioned fruit machines?

Let's not forget kids were going astray long before the web came along.