Online casinos dip into land-based casinos profits

The sluggish economy is only one of the many reasons the land-based casinos are seeing a record decline in profits, online casinos are also to balm, according to a report from a research company. Mintel, a leading market research company, claims in a recent report that online gambling and the online casinos are one of the big contributors to the lower profits the Las Vegas and other land-based casinos have been posting recently.

The report indicates that only 21% of the adults in the United States have visited a land-based casino in the past year, a significant drop from the 35%+ the casinos are used to. "This shift has been gradual, which suggests that this is not a result of the recession. 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," a Mintel senior analyst commented on the report's findings. In the past 12 months the Indian casinos edged the Las Vegas casinos with 3% more attendance, but the good news for the land-based casinos in the United States appears to be the attitude of the gamblers - more than half of the visitors to the casinos expected to lose the money they have set aside for gambling.

The online casinos are also blamed for taking customers from the land-based casinos. According to Mintel, 12% of the adults in the United States have admitted to visiting an online casino or other online gambling websites in the past year, with men clearly leading on the gals - men tend to visit online casinos at least 5 times a year compared to only once for the women. And despite the pinch the online casinos are also feeling from the declining economy situation, the easy of access is still keeping the online gambling websites way ahead of their land-based competitors.

Published on 03/04/2010