Nielson Study UK

According to ACNielson and Co., online casinos are rising in popularity so much in the UK, it’s more popular than Facebook.

Research released this week shows that 3.2 million people in the UK visited online gambling sites in 2009, but just 2.2 million visited Facebook and other social networking sites. Overall, online gaming saw a 40 percent increase in popularity among those in the UK.

While those numbers might not be very surprising to those in the gaming industry, there are some nuggets of surprising information. For example, the study showed that a surprising 46 percent of online gamers are women. According to Nielson, however, middle aged men helped to spike the increase overall in online gaming numbers in the UK.

British citizens are reportedly partial to online poker and bingo and that fits with what gaming executives already know. However, not all are happy about the numbers. Those who oppose legalized online gaming are concerned that the reported increase in player numbers backs up their primary concerns – that online gaming is too accessible and that accessibility breeds problems like addiction and monetary loss.