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86,000 people in Quebec, Canada gamble an average of $9,903 per year online according to a recent independent academic study. That same study found that 32.9 percent of adult Quebecers who gamble online smoke pot.
Results are based on a telephone survey of 11,888 Quebecers during summer 2009, with interviews lasting 12 minutes each.
From the Montreal Gazette:
Quebec's online bettors are largely unmarried males under age 44 with much more pronounced penchant for puffing pot than other gamblers, the study indicated. Gamblers who avoid online wagering spend a far lower average of $527 annually, added the first phase of the large-scale, provincially financed report.
"There is significantly higher spending by people who are gambling online, this is a fact," said Sylvia Kairouz, a Concordia University professor and director of the university's Lifestyle and Addiction Research Laboratory. She co-led the study.
"We have to really monitor how things will be evolving over the next years," she said. "We shouldn't make an inference about what will be the trend."
Online gambling news in Quebec has taken center stage this week with Loto-Quebec preparing to launch its own online gambling site before year’s end. But more importantly, a native Quebec resident, Jonathan Duhamel, has been crowned the first ever Canadian World Series of Poker champion.
Duhamel qualified for the 2010 WSOP Main Event through the world’s largest online poker site, PokerStars.com.
"It is a dream come true for me," Duhamel said. "I was able to win my flips, and you need that to win a tournament. I will do the best I can to be an ambassador for poker."
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
