Internet Gambling - Online Gamblers

While traditional casino and sports gamblers tend to be middle-aged men, studies have found that Internet gambling appeals strongly to younger people, both men and women. In general, online gamblers are more knowledgeable about computers and technology than traditional gamblers and tend to be more middle-class in regards to income. (See Figure 9.1.)

Polls conducted by the Gallup Organization in 1996, 1999, and 2003 found that very few American adults had gambled for money on the Internet. As shown in Table 9.2 at most 1% of those asked had participated in Internet gambling.

Bear Stearns & Co., Inc., reported that there were approximately four million online gamblers worldwide in 2000 and that Americans accounted for about half of them. Most analysts estimate that Americans make up 50–65% of all Internet gamblers. The market is expected to attract more European and Asian gamblers in the next few years, and the U.S. market share is expected to drop.

In February 2002 the Internet research firm Jupiter Media Metrix began tracking Internet gambling as a distinct category in its syndicated monthly industry reports on Internet usage. At that time, the company estimated that 13.5 million people visited online casinos in December 2001 alone, spending approximately twenty minutes per visit. One-third of the online gambling visits occurred

TABLE 9.2

Poll results regarding Internet gambling within the previous year, selected years 1996–2003
PLEASE TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE DONE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
Gambled for money on the Internet	Yes %	No %	No opinion %
*Less than 0.5%
SOURCE: Jeffrey M. Jones, "Please tell me whether or not you have done any of the following things in the past 12 months. Gambled for money on the Internet?" in Gambling a Common Activity for Americans, The Gallup Organization, March 24, 2004, http://www.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=11098 (accessed August 14, 2004). Copyright © 2004 by The Gallup Organization. Reproduced by permission of The Gallup Organization.
2003 Dec 11–14	1	99	*
1999 Apr 30–May 23	*	100	—
1996 Jun 27–30	1	99	—

during typical work hours, suggesting that many online gamblers are playing at work. Most of the gamblers (73%) were aged twenty-five to fifty-four years. Only 8% of the gamblers were aged eighteen to twenty-four. The report noted that 11% of Internet users earn less than $25,000 per year. However, these people make up 13% of visitors to online gambling sites.

Greenfield Online, a market research firm, conducted a survey of one thousand people on Internet usage during 2001. The survey found that 35.6% of respondents had visited an online casino site. Only 13% of those visitors actually bet money on the site. The majority (59%) played free games, and 28% did not play any games at all. The survey revealed that 82% of the visitors were concerned about either credit-card security or receiving payoffs from Web-based casinos. About two-fifths (41%) of the visitors indicated that they would prefer to deal with online casinos run by well-known companies in the gambling industry.

A survey conducted in spring 2003 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 4% of American adults who used the Internet had used it to play the lottery or to gamble online at some point. This was significantly lower than the number who had played any game online (39%) during the same period.