Online Gambling:
Know Your Player
  • /
  • /
Online gambling has received a massive boost during this year thanks to the effects of the global pandemic situation. More people have been forced to stay at home, and have taken to online gambling to provide thrill and interest that they may feel they lack as a result of not being able to go out.
If you're an online gambling operator, you have probably experienced an influx of players in 2020. And now that we're sliding into winter, and people will be more tempted to stay indoors over the coming months, the chance of another surge is highly possible.

To make sure that you can capture and retain as many paying customers as possible, it is vitally important that you know your players and provide tailor-made experiences to fully engage them in your games and keep them coming back again and again. This can include a multitude of things, including knowing general profiles of your players, their habits, and what they are looking for in their online games. If you can understand these factors, you will be able to grow your customer base with ease.

The rise of women gamblers across Europe

When you think of who gamblers are, you might think that they are mostly men. However, the number of female gamblers has been rising steadily over the past couple of decades, mainly with the switch to online gambling making exciting gambling experiences much more accessible for people of all genders. In general, women tend to have less free time on their hands, so being able to enjoy games at home or on-the-go rather than in casinos has resulted in a major boost for women players.

According to customer research agency Optimove, Sweden has the highest percentage of female iGamers with 32% of all online gambling players being women. This is followed closely by the United Kingdom with 30% of online gamers being women, Italy with 21%, Germany with 20% and Spain at 18%.

Key factors to knowing your players

Knowing gender differences between your players will help you to formulate a better business strategy and successfully engage more players. Below you will find some of the key areas to understand if you are to leverage key metrics for your gambling customer base:

Age

As gambling becomes more and more digital, the average age of gamblers is becoming lower as online gambling platforms become more accessible to tech-savvy young adults. People aged within the Millennial and Gen Z generations form a big part of the online gambling market, and so your online gambling platforms should cater for increasingly younger audiences. In the UK in 2020, 16.9% of 16-24 year olds gamble, meanwhile 23.5% of 25-34 year olds do, according to statistics provider Statista.

When looking at the difference between men and women, the average age for a man starting gambling is 20 years and 3 months, whereas for women the average age to start gambling is 34 years and 1 month. Clearly, women are starting gambling later on, and so if you want to attract women to your platform as first-time players, your marketing activities will need to cater for a slightly more mature audience in terms of the channels you use and the way you speak to potential customers.

Time spent gambling

Across Europe, customers in countries that are members for the EGBA (European Gambling & Betting Association) place a stake or bet on average every 17 days.

Delving a little deeper, it is clear that the average times that online gamblers spend playing single sessions vary from country to country. In Poland, according to a 2019 survey from Statista, 28.6% of online gambling sessions were 15 minutes or below, meanwhile 34.7% of sessions were between 15 minutes and half an hour. Alternatively, in a 2017 study published in the Irish journal of psychological medicine, participants were found to have spent 2.8 hours on average per gambling session, with female participants spending more time on average - 3.4 hours - than male participants.

Given the variation in session times, for online gambling operators it is essential to conduct thorough, country-specific research in the markets they are targeting, to know what the average session time is in these countries

When looking at the cumulative amount of time spent by men and women on online gambling sites, Live Roulette have suggested that male players spend a total of 14 months throughout their lifetime, meanwhile women spend 21 months - 50% more than men.

Online gambling spend

In Europe, the average deposit amount for women is around €38.76, whereas men deposit about €54.14 according to Optimove. However, even though women tend to deposit less, they also tend to deposit more frequently (approximately 32 times a year, compared to men who deposit about 19 times a year). This means that women actually end up spending more money on online gambling annually on average. The below graph demonstrates these numbers.
Another interesting stat, according to Live Roulette, is that in the United Kingdom men lose £3,709.44 a year gambling, while women lose £2,659.92 a year gambling.

Looking at habits of spending very large and very small amounts while gambling online, a UK Gambling Commission report in 2018 indicated that twice as many men spend upwards of £500 per week than women, and that more women were more likely to spend in the lowest weekly spending bracket, £1 - £10. These stats suggest that women gamblers are much more cautious than men in terms of playing with high stakes.

Types of game

In general, women are more likely to choose low-risk games that are purely based on luck when they enter an online gambling platform, according to Female First. In contrast, men are more drawn to strategy games where they can try to use tactics in order to increase the odds in their favour.

In addition, women prefer to gamble solo, whereas men tend to prefer competition with others. Another difference is that females prefer small, fixed bets, while men are more comfortable with wagers that aren't predetermined, so that there are higher levels of risk and potentially greater wins.

By analysing and understanding these preferences, we can more clearly see why men and women choose the games that they do. Women, in general, play more online bingo, slot machines, raffles, and lotteries. Men overwhelmingly prefer sports betting, horse racing, poker, or casino table games.

Types of device

The type of device used for online gambling has been changing drastically over the past decade as smartphones have become ubiquitous. Now, gamblers can place bets or play games anytime, anywhere thanks to the fact that nobody is rarely without their smartphone at any point during the day!

If we delve into the differences between men and women, we can see that women like using their mobile devices even more than men do. According to the UK Gambling Commission, 59% of female gamblers use a mobile device, which is greater than the rate of men using them, which stands at 52%.

In Sweden, where online gambling figures for women are at the highest in Europe, a third of all Swedes gamble on their phones, and 62% of all mobile players are women. This shows that Sweden is leading the way for women's uptake of mobile gambling in Europe.

Payment methods

According to iGaming Business, alternative payments now make up 51% of all iGaming purchases worldwide. Although 33% of gamers consider credit and debit card transactions to be the most convenient payment method, 34% have now decided to make the switch to e-wallets for a smoother checkout process.

From a European standpoint, players from the United Kingdom and France tend to place their trust firmly in credit and debit card security, and therefore prefer to make payments within games using this payment method. Elsewhere, Dutch players typically choose to use iDeal, which is a very popular direct debit payment system used on eCommerce sites in the Netherlands.

Alternative payment methods are truly changing the game across online gambling by adding new levels of local convenience, transaction speed and anti-fraud security, and they are growing in popularity and developing quickly. Alternative payments now hold more than half of the iGaming market share.
Main complaints
about online gaming

Knowing what the main grievances are for players about online gambling platforms can help operators to avoid these wherever possible, and keep their players happy. According to the 2018 UK Gambling Commission industry report, men are twice as likely to make a complaint as women, with 10% of all male players having complained to their online gambling provider in the past, compared to women, amongst whom the figure is just 5%.

The chart below from the UK Gambling Commission shows this:

Complaints tend to be lodged more amongst younger gamers - in the 18-24 age group, 13% have made a complaint in the past, meanwhile 1%4 of 25-34 year olds have. This indicates that younger gamers have higher quality expectations of their online gambling platforms when compared to older players, and are more prepared to take decisive action by complaining. The trend for millennials demanding high levels of customer service and taking action when these levels are not met clearly extends into the iGaming sphere.

In terms of the type of complaints made, the same UK Gambling Commission report indicated that the two most common problems that players had were to do with money. Non-payment of winnings and the inability to withdraw funds were found to be the most frequently made complaints, at 17% and 15% respectively out of the total number made.

Two other significant areas of complaint were misleading promotions, at 14%, and incorrect bet settlement, at 13%, which again indicated the high importance that players place on the seamless movement of money when they use online gambling platforms.

The chart below shows the top 9 complaints from the report:
Conclusion

Much like in any other industry, it is becoming increasingly clear for online gambling companies that they need to pay close attention to who their customers are, and what they want out of their gaming experience, in order to become successful and enjoy large profits. Keeping up with industry trends, analysing and reacting to market data, and choosing experienced and savvy outsourced services will help you to take large strides towards making this happen.

As you can see from the data and arguments above, preferences within the online gambling world are shifting towards younger audiences, who are more technically literate and are more willing to spend increasing amounts of money on their online gambling experiences. Players now want to access games on-the-go via mobile devices, they want fast alternative payment methods, and they want money to move seamlessly from their bank account to their iGaming account with no friction points.

Above all else though, they want fair and exciting experiences that replicate the thrill of a casino or sports arena, but which comes with the flexibility of being able to play anywhere, anytime.

To make sure that they can achieve these standards, iGaming companies need to make sure that, as a top priority, they have the right team behind their platform powering it and keeping it running smoothly for customers. This will help to avoid the many grievances that players of online games have, and ensure a much more enjoyable experience.

On the other side of the coin, operators need to give their players fast and succinct access to help and support services to deal with any UX or payment issues that they might have. This will keep the players happy and keep them coming back to the games to chase thrills again and again.

Sources:
https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/womens-issues/gender-gambling-2015-male-dominance-880797.html#:~:text=Women%20start%20gambling%20much%20later,a%20difference%20of%20fourteen%20years!

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/survey-data/Gambling-participation-in-2018-behaviour-awareness-and-attitudes.pdf

https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/gaming/men-vs-women-online-gambling-statistics

https://bovegas.com/blog/casino-wiki/difference-between-female-and-male-gamblers/

https://www.888.com/blog/surprising-differences-in-gambling-habits-between-men-and-women/

https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/features/differences-between-men-women-gambling-1200958.html

https://www.legitgamblingsites.com/blog/do-online-gambling-sites-cater-to-men-over-women/

https://www.igamingbusiness.com/review-video-gaming-payment-preferences

https://www.statista.com/statistics/543361/online-gambling-participation-united-kingdom-uk/

https://www.egba.eu/uploads/2018/11/EGBA-Industry-Key-Figures-2017-1.pdf

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125245/average-time-spent-on-an-online-gambling-session-in-poland/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321108947_A_national_survey_of_online_gambling_behaviours/link/5b6c270fa6fdcc87df700c99/download