Falling attendances in U.S. casinos due to online gambling

[The Buzz]

Mintel, a market research firm, revealed in a recent report that only 30% of adults in the United States had visited a casino in the past year, down from 35% in 2001.

And despite the "illegality" of Internet gambling in the U.S., 12% of adults have visited an online casino or gambling site in the past 12 months.

From Yogonet.com:

"This shift has been gradual, which suggests that this is not a result of the recession," said Billy Hulkower, Mintel senior analyst. "Casinos may be losing audience to the increasingly compelling entertainment offerings in the home; such as HDTV, high-end video game systems and the Internet, including Internet gambling."

[Anthony]

Falling attendances in U.S. casinos due to online gambling

I am going to have to disagree with that.

Of course the recession has hit land base casinos hard. Look at Vegas, they are hurting, high foreclosure rates, stopped construction, rising unemployment. You can not say it is due to online gambling.

Online gambling built the Vegas poker rooms, increased revenue and visitors.

[nitro]

And despite the "illegality" of Internet gambling in the U.S., 12% of adults have visited an online casino or gambling site in the past 12 months.

It's actually amazing how many people are willing to put up with crap like Rival & co.

Of course the recession has hit land base casinos hard. Look at Vegas, they are hurting, high foreclosure rates, stopped construction, rising unemployment. You can not say it is due to online gambling.

The funny thing here is that the recession is only partly responsible for the problem (there were recessions earlier and the city cope way better with them). It is rather the way the casinos are run and the exorbitant prices for any form of entertainment around that (= greed) that alienated the people. The comments in the online versions of the various Vegas newspapers say it all...

[Skinski]

I also feel the recession played a much larger part than online gambling ever has. If anything I think online gambling would tend to give a person a little curiosity to actually go and see what a land based casino is like.