Worldwide Online Gambling Revenues to Top $10 Billion in 2005

eMarketer: Revenues from worldwide online gambling will top $10 billion in 2005.

US consumers are spending roughly twenty times the amount on gambling pursuits that they spend on digital music downloads, and some ten times higher than another well-known vice — online porn. That's a lot of chips on tables everywhere. Online gambling is quickly moving to the mainstream, and it's being driven by the televised poker craze and growth of broadband.

Nearly 20 million US Internet users visited gambling or sweepstake Web Sites in February 2005, equating to nearly 15% of all US Internet users, according to Nielsen//NetRatings data. In Europe, 14 million Internet users visited gambling/sweepstake sites, with the largest number of users originating from Germany. As a percentage of Internet users, however, France and Sweden top the list. More recent data from comScore Media Metrix showed that in July 2005 30 million US Internet users (18% of all Internet users) visited gambling sites that month. This is comparable to the number of Internet users who visit retail music sites and is double the number who visited gambling sites in December 2001. Online poker helped spur phenomenal growth for online gambling during the last few years. Poker has received all the headlines over the last few years, but the online gambling sector is much more than just poker. It consists of online sports betting, online betting exchanges, online wagering on horse races, online casinos, online lotteries, online bingo, online skill games played for cash and more.

Merrill Lynch estimates included in the report show that direct travel suppliers will have a 54% share and online travel agencies, a 46% share of the $62 billion US online travel market in 2005. Nielsen//NetRatings research found that 54% of online travel shoppers start travel planning at an online travel Web site because of the one-stop shopping convenience. Feedback Research also found that 73% of respondents who purchased travel online researched travel at a general site, but then went to a specific company's site to book travel, attributing their decision to lower prices and special deals.

eMarketer's Online Travel Worldwide Publ. 20051110