3.37 M. in Japan Used Overseas Online Casinos: Police Survey

Tokyo, March 13 (Jiji Press)--Some 3.37 million people in Japan are estimated to have used overseas online casinos, with the amount of money spent on the illegal gambling reaching some 1.2 trillion yen annually, a police survey showed Thursday.

Some 40 pct of the users were unaware of the illegality of online casinos, the survey by the National Police Agency showed. "There is a possibility that a lack of awareness about illegality encourages people to use online casinos," an NPA official said.

The police conducted the survey on how online casinos, which are blamed for causing addiction and other problems, are used in the country for the first time. It was conducted in July-October last year, with 27,145 people aged between 15 and 79 giving answers.

In the survey, 2 pct of respondents said that they currently use online casinos, while 3.5 pct said that they have used such gambling sites. The findings mean that there are an estimated 1.97 million active users of overseas online casinos in the country, according to the NPA.

About 60 pct of respondents said that they know online casinos. The proportion of people who have actually accessed casino sites came to 4.6 pct, and three-fourths of them have gambled on the sites, according to the survey.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]