Whenever you see a gambling company in the news, it generally isn’t for positive reasons. The media’s focus on the industry is always negative, and they often highlight either companies who have been caught doing wrong or individuals who have suffered problems as a result of a severe gambling addiction. That isn’t necessarily a fair reflection of an industry that has millions of players in countries all around the world and contributes vast sums in taxation to the countries that host gambling companies.

Aside from the fact that it gets ‘a bad rap’ in general, it’s also one of the last industries you’d consider when it comes to being greener. While most other large businesses or large areas of industry win followers and new customers by advertising themselves as ‘green’ (regardless of whether they’re actually green or not), nobody thinks about the environmental impact of gambling. That’s despite the fact that they really should.

Think about Las Vegas and the impact that its existence has on the planet. Think about how much electricity is used on its famous Strip with all of its neon lights, and the carbon footprint of all the people who fly there to be entertained every year. Every year there’s a news story about the possibility that the resort may one day run out of water. If it does so, it will be because demand from the city has wholly drained Lake Mead. That would be an environmental catastrophe.

How Gambling is Becoming Greener

Image source: 

Whether or not Las Vegas cleans up its act when it comes to the environment remains to be seen, but as a whole, gambling is becoming greener in a way that most people don’t even consider – the movement of customers to online slots websites. Ever since the internet was invented, people have been using it to gamble, but online slots have never been more popular than within the past two years. The more popular online slots like fairytale slots become as an alternative to Las Vegas and physical casino venues in other parts of the world, the more environmentally-friendly gambling will become. It might be a movement that’s been headed by players more than the people who drive gambling as an industry, but it’s a movement all the same. In years to come, the physical impact of gambling on the planet’s resources will be less than it is now, and that’s a good thing.

When we talk about being green, though, we don’t just mean the environment. Green behavior is kinder and gentler behavior, and conduct that looks after people who are vulnerable or struggling. Again, this is something that gambling as a whole has a bad reputation for. The general perception is that gambling companies are happy to take advantage of people who are struggling with addiction issues and profits from people losing more money than they can afford to lose. In the past, much of this criticism has been fair – and it might even be classed as fair criticism for some of the companies active within the sector today. It doesn’t go for every company, though. There’s a movement to make gambling greener from an ethical point of view – and this time, the change is coming from the top rather than the bottom.

Late last year, it was announced in the United Kingdom that several large gambling companies had come together to make a series of pledges about their future conduct. All of those pledges were designed to make the hobby safer for players and to make platforms fairer for both users and providers. New initiatives were announced to ensure that citizens under the minimum legal age to place bets would not gain access to websites, casinos, or bookmakers in order to place bets. New financial support would be provided from the profits of the companies to create and extend projects and facilities that offer assistance to people who have been harmed by gambling and prevent that harm from happening again in the future. New codes were drawn up and agreed upon for the marketing and advertising of gambling. The ideas were sharpened up into five key points of action, and a safer, fairer gambling industry in the United Kingdom is likely to be the result of it.

It’s likely that gambling will never be seen as a ‘green’ activity to everybody. There are many people who have objections to the existence of the hobby, and those objections range from the social to the religious. In many countries and regions around the world, gambling is banned by law and is likely to remain so. For some people, gambling will always be illicit or immoral, and no new sets of rules or regulations are likely to change their opinion on that. Their stance is that all forms of gambling should be banned and that gambling will always do more harm than good.

To many other people, though, gambling is a form of entertainment, and one that they have a happy and healthy relationship with. To others, it’s even a career. There are hundreds of professional poker players all over the world, and there are even a few professional sports betters. It’s likely that those people have never considered whether or not their chosen profession is ‘green’ – and even if they have considered it, they may have no reason to care, but the adjustments that are being made now are likely to have a positive impact on the impact of gambling – both physical and mental – in years to come. The United Kingdom is arguably leading the way, but in doing •so, they’re laying down a template that shouldn’t be too difficult for the rest of the world to follow.

Conclusion

You may not have known or understood (or even cared!) whether or not gambling is or could be a green activity when you started reading this article, but we hope you understand it now. A combination of moving to the internet and introducing harm prevention measures has undoubtedly made it a less harmful hobby than it was five or ten years ago. If gambling can become greener, there’s no reason why other industries and activities we may not usually think about could become greener too. Any progress at all is better than no progress whatsoever, and we’re happy to see gambling taking a step in the right direction as an industry.

Is gambling becoming greener? What’s your opinion?

Share your thoughts and comments with us.

“PIN & SHARE”