New iGaming Survey Includes Interesting and Head Scratching Results
In January a company called Commercial Intelligence (CI) released a survey of 506 online gamblers in New Jersey where they parsed and extrapolated the answers to a variety of questions in an effort to provide one of the most comprehensive glimpses of the newly regulated market we have seen to date.
As promised at the time, the group is back with what they are calling Wave 2, a similar survey (of 520 gamblers this time around), meant to build on their January data and form a chartable trend in some cases.
These surveys offer an interesting look at what has changed in New Jersey online gambling over the past six months.
While the CI data is certainly riddled with problems (sample size, over-extrapolation of the data, and confusion among respondents) I still find it a great place to start when it comes to the habits and trends in the market.
Here are some of the results CI found during their Wave 2 survey.
Ladies Night At The Online Gaming Sites
Female gamblers have increased from 33% to 41% according to CI’s data. While the ratio of male to female gamblers is closer online than live (particularly with casino games as opposed to poker) this is still a very good number.
This is one of the results I would take on face value as it’s an either or question, and one that I hope would not confuse the respondent. Furthermore, the increase is pronounced enough that it would seem that there has been some measurable increase in female online gamblers in New Jersey in the past six months.
The reason behind this increase is unclear of course, and the results did not break participation rates down by game played, but hopefully this is a trend that continues.
What Do We Want? LEGAL POKER!
According to CI, 43% of online gamblers polled began playing after New Jersey legalized online gambling, and this number jumps to 45% for online poker players.
This is another sizable increase considering the number was 35% back in January.
This is an extremely interesting statistic as it implies that nearly half of all current online gamblers were waiting for legalized gambling before deciding to take part in the industry.
Of course, New Jersey’s current participation rate is in line with its historical participation rate, so either the turnover rate for online players is extremely high and their life span is extremely short (likely), or we may be looking at confused respondents (also likely) – in Wave 1 results respondents seemed to have a hard time differentiating between legal and illegal sites and legal and illegal games.
Fun or Money
CI’s data also indicated that 80% of online gamblers are playing for fun, which should send a clear message to operators as to who they should be targeting in their marketing campaigns – if 80% admit to playing for fun, I wonder what the real number is?
You can read some more thoughts on this here: New polling data indicates 4 out of 5 gamble online for fun
Online Players Play More Consistently
This should be perhaps the most unsurprising result, but it still bears mentioning. Online players play far more frequently than live gamblers but do so for smaller stakes.
17% of respondents gambled online at least once a week according to CI’s polling, while just 6% did so at live casinos.
The value of online gamblers has increased from just over $70 gambled (not lost, gambled) per session in January to over $125 in July; a number that falls below what is gambled in casinos by the average visitor, where 50% budget about $100 (for losses) and 90% budget under $300 according to one survey by the AGA (page 30), while another is a bit more precise, putting the average gambling budget of live gamblers at just under $600.
Slots Are More Popular Than Poker
Another aspect of the survey that matches up with other data is an increase in casino style games over poker.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement’s revenue numbers have borne this out as well, with casino games ticking up in revenue while poker has slid in recent months, and CI’s data shows a similar trend with slots the most popular online game (39% of respondents) followed by poker (33%).
It should be noted that these numbers have shifted dramatically since January’s results. In January, CI found 59% of online players had played poker and slots was at a mere 29%.
Because of this discrepancy I wouldn’t read too far into this data, as live poker play also underwent a significant drop from Wave 1 to Wave 2, going from 71% to 33%. So there seems to be a discrepancy somewhere in the results.
Increased Registration Issues
Another area where I’m not too trusting of the data is when it comes to payment and registration issues.
We’ve been told that payment processing and registration issues have been steadily improving in New Jersey, and the anecdotal evidence from the forums and social media attest to this as well, but according to CI’s data more players are having registration now than in January.
Again, for what they are trying to do they have a fairly small sample size to work with, so these results could just be indicative of this.
Fewer New Jersey Residents Using Offshore Sites
Perhaps the most positive data from the survey was that fewer players are using offshore sites. There are two reasons that this may be happening:
- Better awareness and marketing by licensed online gaming sites
- A crackdown by the New Jersey DGE and AG office on unlicensed sites
You can read some more thoughts on this here: New Jersey continues to shun unlicensed online gambling sites
Final Thoughts
If I have one complaint I would like to CI expand their polling to include more gamblers, and also simplify their questioning a bit, as some of the data seems forced and in places extremely inconsistent.
I applaud their efforts but on some level I feel they are trying to do too much.
That being said, these types of surveys and polls can show trends in the industry and are needed to make sure the public and lawmakers remain educated as to what effects online gambling is having.
