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Hard lessons

That's what initially happened to Shaun and Pamela Rich. They had previously enjoyed occasional trips to Las Vegas, where they discovered roulette. The twentysomething Utah County couple decided to spin the wheel online.

"It was wonderful at first," stay-at-home mom Pamela Rich said, noting they parlayed $200 into $1,000 in two days. They considered it a part-time job and set a $30-a-day limit. But it didn't last.

Shaun Rich said his wife constantly called him at a local Wal-Mart where he works in the optometry department. "I just won $50. I just won $100. And then, I just lost $500."

Roulette soon consumed the couple. "The computer would just be staring at me," Pamela said. Shaun watched the clock at work. They thought about the spinning wheel all day and dreamed about it at night. They would lie in bed devising ways to win.

"It sucked us right in," said Pamela, who is pregnant with the couple's second child. "When you play online you just click so it doesn't feel like real money."

Before long, the Riches clicked away all but 15 cents in their online account, money that would have gone toward rent. They put their three nickels into an Internet slot machine, and lost. It was their last online bet — for now.

"We learned our lesson," Shaun said, figuring total losses at about $1,300. They even blew a few hundred dollars playing the children's card game War.

But the urge to log on again persists. "I've thought of playing again. It would be fun, but we don't have the money right now."

Cyberspace citadel

Internet gambling revenue in 2003 was estimated at $5.7 billion and is expected to triple by 2009, according to Christiansen Capital Advisors, a gaming industry consulting firm.

Christiansen Capital estimates nearly 12 million people gambled online in 2003, including 4.5 million in the United States.

"Enthusiasts are playing on mobile phones now," said Dennis Boyko, who tracks industry statistics at PokerPulse.com in Vancouver, B.C.

How many online gamblers are Utahns isn't known. Neither Christiansen Capital nor Boyko get into demographics and don't know anyone who does.

"If someone had that, it would be worth a lot of money," Boyko said. "A lot of marketing firms would want to purchase that."