eMarketer Article

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A new eMarketer report takes you behind the scenes of some of the Internet’s biggest gambling operations and shows you why surfers and sharks around the world are anteing up billions to play.

eMarketer estimates that worldwide online gambling revenues will top $10 billion in 2005 — and that’s just the vig, which means there was probably well over $200 billion in play over the course of the year. “Fueled by a poker craze, the growth of broadband, and television coverage, online gambling is quickly moving to the mainstream,” says Ben Macklin, Senior Analyst at eMarketer and author of the Online Gambling report.

For some perspective, worldwide consumer spending on gambling is some ten times higher than that other well-known vice — online porn. US consumers spending on gambling is roughly twenty times the amount they spend on digital music downloads.

Data from Nielsen//NetRatings shows that nearly 20 million US Internet users visited gambling or sweepstake Web Sites in February 2005, equating to nearly 15% of all US Internet users. In Europe, 14 million Internet users visited gambling/sweepstake sites, with Germany recording the largest number of users. As a percentage of Internet users, however, France and Sweden top the list.

You can view the rest of this article at the following link (not sure how long it will be up btw):
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003681