US Traffic to Online Gambling Sites Soars

April 17 - While the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was originally passed to restrict United States citizens from gambling online, it seems to be having the opposite effect, if a recent report is anything to go by.

comScore recently released figures which showed that during the month of March 2008, traffic to gambling sites soared by almost 14%. The biggest contributing factor to this increase was the large number of sporting events that took place during March, including the NCAA basketball tournament, which is known as March Madness.

Several popular sports betting companies reported record traffic to their sites. The number of visitors to Sportsbetting.com, for example, rose by 114 percent to 145,000 visitors, while 396,000 players visited UPickem.net, a rise of 174 percent. A whopping 975,000 visitors tried their luck at Sportingbet, which reported an increase of 35 percent in traffic to its site during March.

Jack Flanagan, the executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix said: "American sports featured prominently in the top-gaining categories and properties in March. The NCAA tournament drove substantial traffic to online gambling sites during the month, while the start of spring training made MLB.com one of the top gaining properties."

Other top-gaining categories included radio sites which saw a 27% surge in traffic - a record number of 61.8-million visitors in March alone. 21 million people visited AOL Music, with a close 20.8 visiting Yahoo Music. Healthcare sites such as Drugstore.com saw 26.3 million people in total passing through their doors.