Bwin study shows low percentage of online problem gambling

The Vienna listed Bwin Interactive online betting group has released an appetiser on the mammoth online gambling survey it has been working on with Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), an affiliate of the prestigious Harvard Medical School .

The full results of the study, which took place between February and October 2005 and embraced 40 499 players on the Bwin websites, are expected soon.

Speaking at the GIGSE conference in Montreal this week, CHA director Richard A LaBrie described the survey as the "first public study of actual e-gaming behaviour," a statement that does not take into account an 11 000 respondent global study undertaken last year by the University of Nottingham Trent for eCOGRA.

LaBrie told delegates that the study showed that the median behaviour of bettors amounted to a spend of Euro 4 per day. According to the research, only 1 percent of the 40 499 respondents exhibited behaviour which could be read as problem gambling, or "discontinuously high".

Euro 61.6 million was wagered during the study, and 7.8 million bets placed. For the 39 719 players classified as median bettors, total average wagers for the duration of the study was Euro 148.

Referring to the 1 percent of the sample who might be regarded as potentially problematic, LaBrie revealed that even these are only spending the equivalent of "maybe a good bottle of wine a day", online.

Regarding the study methodology, all of the study's participants were from the Bwin website, and the survey covered both account fixed-odds and live action betting.