US Online Casino Demographics: Who Plays Online For Money?

By: Submissions

The US government has passed a series of laws to strike down the gambling restrictions in the recent period. The 2018 abolition of PASPA (on the federal level) was among the latest significant moves. Each state has thus received the right to legalize sports betting as a significant part of its gambling industry. A solid portion of states did so right upon the PASPA repealing and others are just on the way to follow the pattern. 

Gambling, both online and land-based, has thus never been as accessible and widespread across the country as it is at the moment. Many operators took advantage of the opportunity to expand their business lines to numerous states. Besides the casino games (including lottery, keno, scratch cards, etc.), the Americans now have the chance to enjoy a wide range of exotic sports betting markets too. For example, Pointsbet Sportsbook offers a new gambling form known as points betting. With this in mind, we believe it is a perfect time to draw the line and see the numbers in terms of US online casino demographics. Who puts the most time in gambling online and who prefers old-fashioned brick-and-mortar venues instead?

Gambling is men’s pastime

Respective agencies have examined demographic patterns of the general gambling involvement in the United States. The surveys were done through phone and only those older than 21 were included (the legal gambling age in most states that had embraced online gambling so far). We’ve combined these surveys from states like New Jersey to several states’ studies of consumer habits in online gambling.

It is very interesting to notice than only 28% of people who have opened an online account actually played any casino game online. As expected, the majority of them were adult males, 70%. The rest of 30% goes to women (27%) and those who did not reveal any gender information (3%).

Whilst you may have expected to hear the aforementioned data, the fact that of the top 10% of online gamblers, more than 54% were women comes as a surprise. Men do gamble more in general, but women who do it, gamble much more often.

Lower socioeconomic status brings more pathological gamblers

Socioeconomic status is a highly important parameter when it comes to gambling. Surveys only confirmed it. There is a higher chance someone of lower socioeconomic status would become a problem gambler. Being a pathological gambler is a serious issue, a state that needs to be treated just like drug and alcohol addictions. If you do not have enough money to gamble, but still do so, you are more likely to get into unwanted problems.

Gambling and racial groups

Additional analyses revealed that Whites gambled more than Blacks in the last year. However, the Blacks who gambled did so to a much higher extent. Furthermore, according to the surveys, Hispanics were more prone to becoming pathological gamblers than other races.

In general, the lottery has been by far the most popular gambling activity in the last decade in the United States. It is followed by casino games (slots and table games). Sports betting has only been legalized in 2018 and we expect it to reach this level of popularity by 2025.

By Umair Abid

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