Casino News

Thanks to the big push in 2001, the online casino industry moved from the 11th largest Internet advertiser in December 2000 to the fifth largest as of the end of last year. Virtual casinos trail only the retail books, movies and music sector, investment services, consumer credit services, and travel booking services in numbers of ad impressions. A big change from previous years is the places where online casinos are placing their ads. Jupiter Media Metrix said 14 months ago, virtual casino ads mostly targeted visitors to "niche gaming" and "incentive" sites. As of December 2001, 39 percent of online casino ads were hosted on portal sites, compared to just 16 percent on incentive sites. "The fact that casinos are transitioning their ad-buys from niche sites to mainstream portals is proof that this sector is going mainstream," said Charles Buchwalter, Jupiter Media Metrix vice president of media research, in a press release. "The growth in online advertising among virtual casinos indicates that this industry is serious about increasing its momentum and gaining critical mass." According to Jupiter Media Metrix, which recently added the "gambling" category to its monthly Internet usage reports, 13.6 million people visited virtual casinos in December 2001. Those visitors spent an average of 20.2 minutes within those sites during the month, the study said. Unlike the Internet retail sector, where traditional merchants have shouldered aside most dot-coms not named Amazon, offline casinos have not made much of an impact on the Web. The study said bricks-and-mortar casinos have less than one-tenth of one percent the amount of advertising as the entirely-virtual casinos. One finding from the study that will not go over well with most employers is one-third of visits to gambling sites occur at work. Jupiter Media Metrix said in December 2001, 10.7 million people surfed online casinos from home, while 3.9 million did so from work (1 million users did so from both home and work). The pot may be won in one of two ways. If a player makes a wager that no other player chooses to match, then the player whose bet is unmatched wins the pot. In the event that more than one player contests the pot all the way through the final betting round there is a showdown of hands, whereupon the player with the best hand is awarded the pot. In games played for low, the worst hand wins the pot. In high-low split games, the best hand and the worst hand--also known as the best low hand--each take half the pot. A player may relinquish his hand at any time when facing action by folding--refusing to match a bet--and in so doing he surrenders his interest in the pot, all money he has committed to the pot, and any interest in any future money added to the pot.   online casino Back to casino news