An Overview of Social Media Gambling

Social media gambling has soared in popularity thanks to sites such as Facebook, which offers many games to its users in which they can pay money for in game purchases and extra features. The first gambling app was released on Facebook in 2014 and was meant for players in the U.K.

Zynga is among the largest game companies to turn to social media to reach its audience. With the release of Zynga’s real money poker game, Facebook users were able to enjoy an interactive online gambling experience. This led to a significant rise in the number of social media gamblers active on the site.

Social media gambling is also possible through Bebo and Google Plus, though the majority of those who participate in this type of gambling do so, on Facebook. The reason that this type of gambling has only been available to Facebook’s U.K. based members is because of the online gambling laws throughout the rest of the world.

As a result of U.K. residents having access to social gambling the country’s gambling commission has been concerned about the line between commercial gambling and social gaming. They feel that the line between the two has become blurry because social media has become such a popular way for people to gamble. The commission has kept a particularly close eye on social games that involve aspects of gambling games like dice and playing cards.

Of all the players who engage in social media gambling, 54% of them are men and 46% of them are women. Social media gamblers are generally 39 years of age and a small percentage of them participate in this activity during the day while at work.

Even some social media users who play non gambling games have been found to be more likely to transition into gambling as a result. The concern has been that this has the potential to lead to social media casino gamers developing a gambling problem. One reason for this is because social gaming and gambling are merging more and more every day.

Studies have been conducted to further explore the relationship gambling and social casino gaming share. The study was conducted online and involved 521 adults who had played social media casino games over the course of the past year. Of the 521 adults surveyed, 71% of them said that social media casino games did not change the amount of time and money they spent gambling. Only 19% of those surveyed said they were gambling more as a result of playing the social media casino games. It was found that men are more likely to make the transition from playing social media casino games to gambling than women are. It was also found that younger players were more likely to make the transition than older players. Those that did make the transition most often did so to give themselves a chance of winning real money.

Facebook and other social media sites will likely continue to offer gaming/gambling opportunities.