Australian Gambling – Australians are four times more likely to place a sports bet via the internet rather than visit a licenced TAB agency, according to the latest Roy Morgan statistics.

The samples, which were taken in the 12 months up until June 2014, show 207,000 Australians (1.1 per cent of the population) in an average three month period placed at least one sports bet via the internet, a huge jump on the estimated 46,000 that placed bets in an average three month period 10 years ago.

This has come largely to the detriment of TAB agents, who have suffered nearly a 50 per cent decline in sports wagers taken in the last 10 years. Many TAB outlets have closed their doors as more and more people warm to using online sportsbooks.

Roy Morgan’s Group Director for Consumer Products Angela Smith said the latest results had confirmed what people were already thinking.

“With digital technology playing an every-more central role in our lives, it is not surprising that the internet has overtaken TAB agencies and outlets as the most popular way to place a sports bet,” she said.

“Yet while the number of people using TAB agencies has halved in the last decade, TAB outlets in pubs and clubs remains popular.”

To offset these market losses, Tatts and TabCorp, which have the retail licences for sports betting in Australia, have put more electric betting terminals in pubs and clubs. This has resulted in a small increase in the number of wagers placed in licenced venues, but goes only a small way to getting back the market share that was squarely theirs 10 years ago.

Now both Tatts (TattsBet.com) and TabCorp (Tab.com.au) have extensive online operations, but still have given market share to the various sports books licenced in Australia.

Predictably it’s the younger generation who are leading the way in the revolution of how we bet, with Roy Morgan’s profiling tool Helix Personas putting an interesting new angle on these statistics.

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