British government officials clashed over whether problem gamblers had increased in number since the introduction of online casinos. The clash became inevitable when the Gambling Commission made an announcement, that there had been drastic rises in the number of people affected by problem gambling since online casinos have gained popularity, without being able to substantiate this claim.

It seems that the UK Conservative politicians decided that the number of problem gamblers in the United Kingdom population came to a total of 7.4 percent. It appears that this number was simply made up, and did not have any proof that went with it.

An official government study was performed by the Department of Culture which turned up very different results to those which the Conservative politicians’ presented to the public. The Department of Culture found that about 0.6 percent of the UK population suffer from problem gambling.

A spokesperson for the Department of Culture said that the percentage of incidences of problem gambling have not risen since the time that online casinos began in 1997, while at the same time, online gambling has had an increase of 5.2 percent in the number of players who played online in the past year. There is no reason to believe that the percentage of problem gamblers has risen along with the increased number of players over the past year.

The Conservatives were hoping to justify the blocking of some of the advertising that is permitted for online casinos in the UK. Non-UK online casinos are permitted to advertise in the UK if they are on the UK’s white list.