More than 14m Europeans, or 14 per cent of those online from home, visited a gambling and sweepstakes site in February, according to the latest statistics from internet research firm Nielsen Net Ratings.
Gambling and sweepstake sites were most popular with French and Swedish surfers, but have yet to make a mark in southern Europe, with less than ten per cent of Spanish and Italians logging on to gamble.
In all the countries under measurement across Europe, the majority of visitors to gambling and sweepstakes sites are using a high-speed internet connection. France, Switzerland and Spain lead the way, with more than 80 per cent of visitors to online gambling sites connecting via broadband.
What we normally see in the majority of categories is that the high-speed users spend the greatest amount of time online.
For gambling and sweepstake sites however this is not always the case. In France, Sweden and the UK, the time spent on gambling and sweepstakes sites is very similar, suggesting that slower connection speed is not off putting for the determined gamblers in these countries. By comparison, in Switzerland, Italy and Germany high-speed internet users are spending significantly more time than those connecting at a slower speed.
In the UK, the National Lottery is the most popular gambling and sweepstake site, with over 1.3m visitors from home in February 2005. This audience figure puts the site in the top 40 most visited sites in the UK. The gambling category in the UK has seen strong growth over the past twelve months, with audiences up by 45 per cent when compared to the same time last year. This growth has been driven by a range of gambling, betting and online casino sites, and not just by the National Lottery, which appeals to specific demographic groups, and is a lottery based site rather than a full online bettering or gambling site.
Gabrielle Prior, European internet analyst for Nielsen, said: 'With nearly more than one in ten online Europeans visiting a gambling site, this is clearly an important sector for the internet industry. Online gambling and casino sites are also prolific online and offline advertisers.
We expect to see this category continue to grow as advertising attracts consumers and the sites add more and more games and prizes. We know from earlier survey work that UK gamblers like the speed and convenience of betting online, and as the broadband boom continues we expect more people to try online gambling.'
