Online Gambling Sites See Boost in Traffic from Europe
Internet measurement company NetValue recently reported on a new survey on traffic to online gambling Web sites and found a significant increase in visits to these sites by many European residents within the last few months.
Events like the World Cup and Wimbledon are thought to have played a role in the increase in site visits during June 2002 as compared with the previous month, according to NetValue. The greatest increase in visitors was seen by the High Street shops that have online capabilities, and Eurobet.co.uk experienced a 171 percent jump in site visits over that time frame. Ladbrokes.com witnessed a 95 percent increase and WillHill.com had an increase of 71 percent.
Overall, visitors to online gaming sites from Norway increased by 31 percent, German visits increased 18 percent and U.K. visitors increased 15 percent. Visits from residents of France and Sweden were the only categories to decrease in frequency over the time period.
The study also found some disturbing evidence regarding underage gambling:16.8 percent or one in six visitors to online gambling sites were below the legal age of 18. Twenty-four percent of visitors came from the 17-24 age group.
The high degree of underage use is consistent with the number of gambling advertisements seen by that sector of the population--more than one in five gambling advertisements in June was viewed by a minor. The amount of advertising done by online casinos has increased by about 40 percent since last year and accounts for the fact that 53 percent of the United Kingdom's online population was exposed to gambling advertisements.
Canadians Continue to Increase Gambling Spending
A recent Toronto Star article reported on information from Statistics Canada concerning the rise in per capita spending on gambling in Canada during the past decade.
In 1992, Canadians of legal gambling age, which is 18, spent an average of $130 per year on gambling activities. That number has since risen to $424 in 2000 and certain provinces show a greater proclivity to gambling, with Manitoba achieving the highest average of $536 spent per year. Citizens residing in the three territories were the most reluctant to spend money on gambling, averaging only $106 per year spent on those activities.
The Statistics Canada agency reports that the increases witnessed over the past decade are indicative of the overall pattern of gambling spending in that country--average spend has not decreased since records have been kept. Additionally, the agency believes that these figures are probably on the low end of reality, since it is thought that most people under-report their gambling spending.
New Jersey Gambling Hotline Helps 20,000 Callers in 2001
Of the over 20,000 calls to the 1-800-GAMBLER help line funded by the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey in 2001, more than 2000 of those calls were used in a statistical compilation to get a picture of the demographics of gambling.
The No. 1 gambling activity among callers was overwhelmingly casino gaming--61 percent indicated this was their primary form of gambling. Twenty percent participated in lottery gambling, but only 9 percent said it was their primary form of gambling. Sixteen percent of callers said that sports betting was their main attraction to gambling. Three percent of callers said that Internet gambling was their primary activity.
The number of callers to the help line that were age 55 or older increased 6 percent in one year to account for 15 percent of the total callers since 2000. Females also increased their calls 6 percent to total 24 percent of callers.
Other interesting notes from the study include: Caucasian callers dropped by 9 percent, married callers dropped 29 percent, single callers increased by 19 percent, and the average length of gambling problems went from 15 years in 2000 to 31 years in 2001.