New research shows video game players are more likely to bet

William Davis Published 26/06/2022

The appetite for online entertainment has rocketed in recent years, with multiple factors driving demand. There are no signs of this trend slowing. Instead, the latest research shows that online gamers are more likely to participate in other forms of online play, such as betting.

Entain, the parent company to top brands such as Party Casino, conducted a huge study suggesting a correlation between playing video games and betting. While this result wasn’t unexpected, some of the other findings were more of a surprise.

The digital generation

The research was based on a large-scale study of 16,000 people in the UK, which looked at online habits, including social media, gaming, and betting.

The results showed that there was a strong correlation between gaming and betting. According to the study, gamers were 4.3 times more likely to enjoy betting and 4.5 more likely to participate in iGaming.

This backed up the visible shift away from the idea that it’s only youngsters or single men who game. Men with children made up one of the largest portions of those who consume online entertainment.

Although there is a large user base of young video game players, the early adopters who have grown up with game consoles have retained their passion for digital entertainment. Adult men who would have matured with products Playstation and Xbox are now more likely to belong to the group known as “digital dads” rather than aging out of it.

Entain Deputy Director of Digital Dom Groundsell said that the results show that interactive entertainment is “far from confined to the younger generations”. He confirmed that Entain is in the process of developing exciting new interactive content, which includes social and gaming features as a response to demand from the public.

Study results

Both men and women consume online interactive entertainment, such as betting, games and iGaming, but in the 25-44 age group, there are twice as many men.

59% of men in this age range said they played games such as FIFA or Fortnite weekly, compared to 29% of women. Mobile games such as Candy Crush also proved to be popular with men in the study, with 56% taking part on a regular basis.

Young players still make up the majority of gamers, with 53% of under-24s playing every week. 46% of 25-34 year olds and 36% of 35-44 year olds also play every week, showing consistent demand throughout the rising age brackets.

The vast majority also used social media, with 92% of under-24s using Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram every week. There was only a small drop with older user, with 89% for 25-34-year olds and 84% of 35-44-year-olds.

Esports and betting are expected to grow with a separate survey showing that more than a third of adults expect to watch it in the future. The study of 20,000 adults showed that presently, esports enjoys an audience of around 15% of British adults.

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