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Representatives of law enforcement agencies told us that Internet gambling could be used to launder money, but others viewed the threat as less serious. Law enforcement representatives said that the anonymity and jurisdictional issues characteristic of Internet gambling make on-line gaming a potentially powerful tool for money launderers. They noted that few money laundering cases involving Internet gambling had been prosecuted but attributed the small number of cases primarily to a lack of regulation and oversight. However, regulatory agencies and officials from the credit card and gaming industries did not believe that Internet gambling was any more susceptible to money laundering than other forms of e-commerce.

Internet gambling involves any activity that takes place via the Internet and that includes placing a bet or wager. The Internet is a complex web of computer networks that allows a person in one place in the world to communicate by computer with another  person located in another place in the world. Courts generally have defined a bet or wager as any activity that involves a prize, consideration, and chance. A prize is anything of value. Chance is usually determined by assessing whether chance or skill predominates. Consideration is what the person must pay to enter and must be something of value, such as money.

There have been numerous well-conducted epidemiological studies of the prevalence of sexual problems in the United States, Europe, and globally [8]. These studies have used differing criteria for identifying sexual problems, yet have produced somewhat similar results. Most studies have found that complaints of low desire are the most common female sexual complaint. Studies have also found that complaints of low sexual desire increase with age, relationship duration, number of small children, relationship discord and symptoms of anxiety and depression [9–11]. These studies have been criticized as not distinguishing between sexual problems (transient issues not requiring medical intervention) and sexual dysfunction (persistent, pervasive problems in adaptation requiring medical intervention).

The limitations of epidemiological data in providing estimates of the frequency of sexual dysfunction in the general population can be appreciated by a careful analysis of the most comprehensive studies to date, the Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behavior [8]. This study collected data from 27,500 men and women in 29 countries. Sampling techniques had to be modified for some countries such that comparisons of rates across countries is somewhat problematic. The question pertaining to low sexual desire was ‘During the last 12 months have you ever experienced for a period of two months or more when you lacked interest in having sex?’ If the answer was affirmative, the subject was then asked to rate its frequency as occasionally, sometimes or frequently. This study has been quoted as finding that approximately 33% of women in Canada and the United States complained of low sexual desire. However, this number represents an aggregate of all women reporting occasional, periodic and frequent problems with low libido.

The interviews were conducted by professional interviewers at the SRC from our special facilities in Walker Plaza on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. All interviewers received at least nine hours of general interviewer training, in addition to the more than one hour of specific training on the youth gaming questionnaire. Most of the interviewers were “veteran” interviewers in the sense that they had participated in similar research projects previously. Some have been interviewers for the Survey Research Center for over five years.

The maximum margin of error for the survey does not exceed 3.4% at a 95% confidence interval. Of course, additional error may result from things such as question wording, respondents’ inattention, pace of speech by the interviewer, and respondents’ willingness to honestly answer individual items. Each of these is given special attention during the questionnaire design and data collection phases so total survey error is minimized as much as possible. We have no reason to believe there are major biases in the data collected for this research.

Each interviewer was given a set of answers entitled “What the Respondent Might Like to Know” which were to provide standard responses to questions raised by the people contacted for an interview. The sample of telephone numbers was obtained from Survey Sampling, Incorporated. In addition all calls were monitored and 10% of all completed interviews were verified by supervisors. All “non-contacts” such as answering machines or no answers were reattempted at least 10 times.