Australian Senator Worried Social Media May Pervert Children

Facebook and Zynga gambling may negatively affect children, says one Australian senator.

The liberal Australian gambling laws are getting tougher and the independent Senator, Xenophon, a man who suddenly became important as his vote now counts, is going on an anti-gambling campaign.

As the latest research indicates, Xenophon is now cracking on social media games, such as those offered via Zynga, and claims the laws need to change so children don’t access these. The games, widely available, can be played for free, although payments are made for digital gadgets and extra chips. Basically, the players pay to have power games.

Although the vision of six-year-olds playing poker or spinning a roulette wheel is dazzling, the clear proposal on how to ban children from accessing social games on Facebook wasn’t presented by this overly active senator, living his five minutes he got from life. Is Xenophon seeking to censor Facebook in Australia?

The online gaming may not be the only target. The mobile casinos in Australia are facing increased scrutiny as well.

Overall, the new gambling law proposals address multiple points such as banning certain options from sport betting such as betting on a single play or a ball. This, for example, includes wagers on who will win the next game in a tennis match, or who will score the next point in a cricket game.

As the new laws go, the online poker sites in Australia may only be able to offer poker tournaments, a passion for many, under very strict conditions. But, this actually doesn’t satisfy the senator as he feels this isn’t strict enough.

One thing is sure: Xenophon is seeking to kill the gambling-related jobs in Australia and get these people into unemployment ranks. Moreover, any banning of online gambling will result in players going to offshore online casinos, while the Australian government loses the taxation revenues it gets from the gambling industry.

Going for blocking the sites technologically will result in players using proxy servers to access them anyway, while criminalizing gambling will send people to jail for spinning a mobile slot or even playing bingo.

Yeah, great ideas, Mr. Xenophon!