Gambling and Relationship (Survey)

At CO, we discuss a lot of gambling topics – the newest slot games and online casinos, various gambling innovations, news and legislation from around the world, etc. However, we very rarely, if ever, turn away from gambling and towards the gamblers themselves, an oversight which we have recognized and taken steps to correct through our regular surveys. We’ve already asked our readers for their opinion several times, like about their experience playing casino games with crypto, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

This time, we’ve decided to ask an even more personal question in the hopes of gaining some insight into how our favourite hobby is affecting the lives of players, if it is at all. And what better topic to ask gamblers about than love? All joking aside, gambling is still a controversial topic around the world, and we believed that it was important to see how being engaged in it affected our players’ relationships, positively or negatively. Needless to say, the response has been even higher than our crypto study, and we’ve gained some very valuable perspective on the lives of online casino gamers in Germany and beyond.

Partner’s Opinion on Gambling

Our first question was how our readers’ partners feel about their gambling habits – pretty much getting straight to the point. The majority of players, just over half, admitted that they do not currently have a romantic partner (and, implicitly, that the topic of gambling likely never played much part in prior relationships). While this may sound like a large percentage, it’s actually completely within the norm – a lot of players who prefer online gambling as opposed to betting at physical locations are millennials (30 and under), and according to recent studies, more than half of millennials are single and prefer the company of themselves. Really, no real surprises to be found there, all we’re seeing is that gamblers have relationships at the same rate all younger people do.

Moving past that, we’re seeing that the majority of people who know about their partner’s gambling are not opposed to it – over 27%, to be precise. Which means that, out of all gamblers in relationships who took our poll, more than half do not let their gambling interfere with their love life, which is great to hear. After all, while online casinos can be a rather lonely endeavor, many casino games, like roulette, can be made even more fun with a partner, taking turns to bet and guess where the ball will land. Of course, the question mentioned nothing about playing games together with a partner, so we aren’t saying too many people do that, but it’s nice enough to know that at the very least gambling has not interfered in the relationship of the majority of our readers.

Then again, there’s the flipside. Close to 12% of the players who took the poll mention that they’re too afraid to tell their SO (significant other) about their habits. There can be a number of reasons for it – part of it might be shame due to online gambling not having the best reputation, another part may be fear that their partner will take an issue with it and restrict them from their hobby. We’ve seen this kind of reaction emerge in another hobby, video games, in which many partners have tried placing an ultimatum on their SO to choose between them or games – enough to spawn a popular Internet meme showcasing how unhealthy that choice really is. While we can only guess the reason why someone may choose to keep their gambling hobby a secret, there is no doubt that many of them stem from very valid concerns.

Finally, a combined 9.5% of gamblers polled admit that online gambling has negatively impacted their relationship. 7.8% of gamblers claim that their partner was upset at their actions, and 1.7% even confess that their partner has left them because of it. Now, it’s worth noting that these cases are a minority among all polled, but at the same time, that minority accounts for nearly a fifth of all gamblers in a relationship that took the poll, and as such should not be discounted. Gambling addiction is a very real and very palpable concern with thousands of recorded cases throughout the UK, with likely thousands more going unreported and untreated. The government has even issued legislation restricting no-deposit casino bonuses in an attempt to curb gambling addiction, but historically, restricting gambling has never really worked at curbing addiction. The best way to do that is to simply raise awareness of it and provide resources. If you or a loved one is struggling with gambling addiction, there are many resources, like GamStop, that can provide aid for free.

The Demographics of the Poll

Our second question was about the gender of the people who took the poll – while not directly linked to the previous question, we still felt like it was important enough for us to learn about the players using our site. While today we have the pleasure of meeting people who identify as a variety of genders (and the freedom to identify as something other than male or female in case those labels don’t entirely or at all apply to them), purely for the sake of simplicity we made the decision to group all genders outside of the binary into a singular option, a non-specific “Other” (or “Diverse”, as it’s commonly referred to in Germany on official documentation).

This poll’s “winner” isn’t particularly surprising – we’ve known for a while that online casino games are primarily a masculine hobby, while on the other hand bingo sites and lotteries are mostly female-dominated. Obviously we’re generalizing (impossible not to do so when it comes to anonymous poll results), but this has been the trend since the dawn of online gambling, and it has no intention of bucking, with 58% of players identifying as males. However, what was surprising to us was just how big the percentage of female players was – a whopping 38%, significantly more than depicted in similar casino polls in the past, which have usually hovered around the 20-25% mark.

This means that more and more women have been getting interested in online casino games, which can only be a great thing. A more diverse demographic of players means more diverse casino games, as well as features meant to appeal to many different types of gamblers. We’ve already started seeing this transformation with online slot games, many of which have been designed to appeal to women (such as the megahit “Immortal Romance”).

Trans, genderfluid, non-binary and other players who did not identify as either male or female also made up 4% of the polled gamblers, which may sound insignificant, but it’s actually a huge number given that they’re such a small percentage of the general population. If you meet a trans or non-binary person, chances are high they’ve at least dabbled in online casino, and we find this very exciting – again, a more diverse audience leads to more diverse games, and we can only benefit from that. Regardless of your gender, just having more distinct options for games and slots means you’re statistically more likely to find something you enjoy.

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