40% Increase in UK Online Gambling

September 17, 2010 | News Category: Online Casinos

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While it is quite clear that online gambling has increased in popularity recently, the figures that came out of a study by Nielsen, an independent media measurement company, are somewhat surprising.

The study by Nielsen shows that online gambling in the United Kingdom has gone up by 40 percent in the last year. The numbers show that there have been about 3.2 million more people in Britain who have logged onto Internet gambling sites in the past year, than there were the year before. In the same time period, the number of additional visitors who accessed various social media sites such as Facebook, and others who offer similar services, only totaled 2.2 million.

There were a number of other interesting statistics that Nielsen published as part of their study of the United Kingdom online gambling world, such as the division of how many men and how many women take part in online gambling, and information regarding the ages of online gamblers, as well as the incomes of the online gamblers.

It seems that around half of the online gamblers in the UK earn over £30,000 each year. Of all those gambling online in the United Kingdom, women make up 46 percent of the players. Hopefully for the women out there, this will give online gambling site more incentive to offer sites that appeal to women. While there are some of these sites out there, with the high percentage of female online gamblers, the market may be able to sustain even more of them.

As far as the ages of players goes, Neil Beston, from Nielsen explained how those in lower income brackets are using online gambling sites less. He noted: "The over-65s and those on lower household incomes have historically been heavy users of gambling sites, but in the face of the recession this profile is changing."

Although those in the lower income brackets are now gambling less, as was seen above, the numbers are up, so Beston explained where the new players are coming from: "While the phenomenal growth in gambling sites over the last two years has been driven by men and women of all ages, it appears to be powered particularly by middle-aged men, the well-educated, and high-earning households."

When there have been studies in the UK that have been carried out by independent parties regarding gambling prevalence, they have shown that much of the online gambling that is found in the UK is carried out by those who are playing the National Lottery.