Casino Enterprise Management

The Picture of a Typical Gambler

The last decade has shown remarkable changes in online gambling industry in terms of gambling habits and attitudes. Introduction of online casinos and poker rooms significantly extended the possibilities of wagering, which resulted in growing interest in remote gambling services all over the globe.

A number of industry studies revealed that a typical contemporary online gambler is in many ways different from the one that used to be ten years ago. One of the first most comprehensive studies regarding the behavior of an average online gambler based on the analysis of 10.865 people from 96 counties and 37 different fields of employment was conducted by the Betting and International Gaming Research Units at Nottingham Trent University in 2007-2008. The study shed light on the most relevant social and demographic features of online gamblers at casino and poker room as well as the differences between regular land-based casino gamblers and those who select to play online.

In 2009 the total number of players involved in online gambling activity was estimated to be between 14 and 23 million people. Prior to introducing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in the USA in 2006 the penetration rate was estimated between 3 and 4 percent. A relatively low value of the internet gambling penetration rate in the USA is expected to result in future growth upon the recently started liberalization in online gambling legislation in a number of states.

After passing the UIGEA Europe appeared to become the leading and fast-growing online gambling market with an average penetration rate of about 6 per cent. Since introduction of the UK Gambling Commission the UK remains one of the European leaders in terms of remote gambling popularity with a penetration rate of 10.6 percent in 2009.

Gambling Behavior in the UK
The British gambling prevalence survey conducted in 2007 reported that men (71%) were more likely to gamble in general than women (65%). Moreover, men were more active in terms of participating in various kinds of individual gambling activities (except for bingo) and showed higher presence in online gambling. The survey revealed that men are more used to playing strategic and skillful games like poker or craps while it’s more typical for women to get involved in games of chance or more social forms of gambling like bingo. Bingo is now said to become the socially acceptable form of gambling for women, probably because of the origins of the game that was originally initiated as a source of fundraising for church.

Thus, the 2007 UK survey proved that men were six-fold more likely to gamble online than women, however, this gap was expected to decrease. The study conducted in the UK in 2010 was the first survey of the kind after full implementation of the UK Gambling Act 2005. Thus, the latest UK study reported that 73% of the adult population took part in some kind of gambling activity in 2010, which shows an increase by 5% in comparison with 2007. Unlike the previous years, 2010 marked the significant increase in other gambling activities apart from National Lottery. The 2010 survey was aimed at getting the information on the way people gamble. As it turned out, 14% of adults resorted to online gambling services and 17% participated in both online and offline betting and only 2% of the population who gambled online only. Surprisingly, the increase in online gambling activity was more significant among women than men. The most popular activities of those online involve casino games and sports betting. Among players who played casino games, 39% selected to do it online as well as 27% of sports bettors. The same as in 2007 men (75%) were more active in terms of gambling, however, the industry experienced a significant rise by 6% in women-gambling.

Thus, slot machines have become more popular among women with a rise from 8% to 10%, whereas their prevalence among has decreased from 19% to 16%. At the same time both men and women showed the increasing interest in online gambling (online bingo, casino and slots). Nevertheless, women prevalence rates were four times higher than in 2007. The survey revealed the new emerging tendency in UK gambling industry: while men still remain more active gamblers, some proportion of women have stepped up their gambling activities.

In 2010 men showed a considerable prevalence in the average number of days spent gambling (115.2 compared to 71.5 for women). According to the survey 85% of regular gamblers were categorized as non high-time and non-high spend, which means they didn’t tend to spending either much time or money gambling, while there were only 6% of high-time and high-spend gamblers and 4% each were considered high time and high spend gamblers. These numbers reveal that the majority of UK players gamble reasonably and can control their gambling behavior.

It’s also worth considering that socio-economic profile of all four groups of gamblers reveal particular regular pattern. While high-time only gamblers are reported to belong mostly to the poorest socio-economic group (7% unemployed), high-spend only gamblers were represented by varied socio-demographics (35% of graduates and 70% of those with paid employment) with preference for betting on horse races and sports wagering. High-time/high-spend gamblers turned out to be mostly unemployed and living in low income households and choosing to play casino games, bet on horse races or fixed odds betting terminals.

The UK prevalence study outlines that the gambling industry recovered after the crisis in The UK prevalence study outlines that the gambling industry recovered after the crisis in 2008 and the although men still outnumber women in online gambling the number of females
gambling online is likely to increase in the nearest years, which creates new business opportunities for online gambling operators.

To download the entire white paper, visit www.viaden.com/learn-industry/white-papers.html.

About Viaden Gaming

Viaden Gaming is an acknowledged online gaming software company fully licensed by the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission and offering optimal online gaming solutions from development through to delivery and maintenance.

The company delivers its i-gaming solutions backed up by deep technical expertise, quality-driven service delivery model and customer-oriented approach. The range of company products involves online casino, online poker, and sportsbook software, mobile casino and social poker.

To help online gambling operators unleash the full potential of online gambling industry, Viaden Gaming provides a variety of white papers based on the latest research and analysis of the current trends in the online gambling market.

Since starting an online casino is a great business challenge it is particularly important for the operators to be aware of their target audience, the most popular gambling habits and preferences. That is exactly why Viaden Gaming launched a series of white papers that touch upon socio-demographic data of typical gamblers, differences in male in female gambling activity, evolving market trends, the comparative analysis of different gambling opportunities, the latest updates in the gambling legislation worldwide and a variety of other industry related facts.

Viaden Gaming white papers are aimed at delivering timely industry-related information that sheds light on the competitive industry advantages and the peculiarities of online gambling business development. For more information about Viaden Gaming, visit www.viaden.com.