Online gambling growing faster than Facebook in Britain

Quick quiz:

What’s the fastest growing Internet category in Britain?…

a) social networking
b) online gambling
c) porn

If you answered c), you forgot to take into account the fact that half the British population is female.

If you answered a) you may be one of those people who feels the need tell all your friends where you are, who you’re with, why you’re there and whether or not you’re completely happy with the situation. But you’d also be wrong.

The answer, according to Internet research gurus Nielsen, is online gambling.

Last year 3.2 million more British residents gambled online than the previous year.  Facebook and all the social networking sites attracted a mere 2.2 million more users than a year earlier. And porn…well Nielsen didn’t have any stats but I’m sure it didn’t lose too many fans.

The British love affair with net gambling is largely poker driven.  Party Poker pulled an additional 870,000 visitors year-on-year, but casinos (Party Casino grew 360%), sports betting and the female targeted bingo type sites were also popular.

The interesting part though was not so much the extent of growth but where it’s coming from.  While an older, lower socioeconomic demographic generally drives terrestrial gambling expansion the story online is quite different. Almost half of all online gamblers earn more than £30,000 ($50,000) annually.

“While the phenomenal growth in gambling sites over the last two years has been driven by men and women of all ages, it appears to be powered particularly by middle-aged men, the well-educated and high-earning households.” says Nielsen’s commentary on their findings.