Anyone who says that the internet gambling boom in the United States is subsiding would be stating the exact opposite of a recent report issued by comScore Media Metrix. The company, which “is a global Internet information provider to which leading companies turn for consumer behavior insight that drives successful marketing, sales and trading strategies,” according to its website, released a summary of July’s online traffic in the United States. Glancing down the list of “Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.),” you’ll notice “Online Gambling,” which ranks as number seven on the list. All in all, the number of unique visitors who visited internet gambling sites increased by 5% from June to July, 2008.
In June, 2008, there were 12,038,000 unique visitors to online gambling sites, a pretty large number considering that the population of the United States is 300,000,000. In essence, one out of every 25 people in the United States visited an online gambling portal in June. In July, that number jumped to 12,648,000, up 5%. Here were the top six categories by growth, all of which ranked higher than internet gambling:
Travel – Ground/Cruise – Unique visitors up 10% in July
Retail – Consumer Goods – Unique visitors up 8% in July
Retail – Mall – Unique visitors up 7% in July
Retail – Movies – Unique visitors up 7% in July
Travel – Information – Unique visitors up 7% in July
Travel – Hotels/Resorts – Unique visitors up 6% in July
For enthusiasts of internet gambling, the increase in visits to sites within the industry can be nothing less than good news. Stripped of legality by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), internet gambling websites have come under fire since the law’s passage in 2006. At a hearing over the summer, Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) stated that internet gambling sites represented “criminal enterprises” that were seeking to infiltrate the bedrooms of children across the country. With the Religious Right squarely against internet gambling on moral grounds, any growth is a welcome sign for the future of the industry.
The top ten sites by percentage change in unique visitors from June to July, 2008 were CBS Corporation, The Mozilla Organization, Infospace Network, General Mills, Nordstrom, Inc., ABCNEWS DIGITAL, GSN Games Network, Vlaze Media Networks, Inc., GAMEVANCE.COM, and EVERSAVE.COM. The most visited set of sites were those belonging to the Google network, which saw 189,134,000 unique visitors in July.
High-traffic online poker sites, according to PokerScout.com, include PokerStars (16,200 cash players at any one time in the past week, on average), Full Tilt Poker (7,700), iPoker Network sites (5,000), PartyPoker (4,400), Ongame Network sites (3,200), Boss Media sites (1,400), Svenska Spel (1,280), Ultimate Bet (1,220), and Cake Poker (1,140). Of those, only Cake Poker, Ultimate Bet, PokerStars, and Full Tilt accept players from the United States. Absolute Poker, Bodog, and sites on the Microgaming Network also welcome U.S. players.
With Congress currently out of session for the August recess, no movement on internet gambling legislation can occur until after Labor Day, at the earliest. In the meantime, poker players worldwide can take solace in knowing that unique visitors were up by 5% in July.