Gambling Still Popular But Budgets Drop, As Bradley Study Found
A report in the Nashua Telegraph documents the changes in habits of amateur gamblers in New Hampshire as the recession deepens, and finds that people are still entertaining themselves gambling, just playing for smaller stakes. This corroborates the findings of Online Casino Advisory senior gaming analyst Sherman Bradley, who undertook an informal survey of online casinos last month and discovered that the number of patrons is holding steady or growing, but the average deposit and bet have dropped significantly.
Bradley deduced that wagering is still a preferred form of entertainment, but that players had adjusted their budgets to conform to dropping incomes, meaning that gambling was not an addiction or compulsion, but a pastime. A press release noted that Internet casino patrons displayed control and restraint of their gambling expenditures. The New Hampshire evidence is largely anecdotal, but falls right in line with Bradley's results.
In the article, a poker player named Brok Griffith playing at the River Card Room says he's still playing tournaments, but at ten-dollar entries rather than forty-dollar. He tells the Telegraph that he plays for fun rather than to make a fortune."I'm careful about what I spend," he says "This is entertainment. Some people go the movies, I play cards."
Jim Rafferty, owner of the River Card Room, says customers have moved to ten-dollar card events and penny slots from higher stakes, but the players still show up. Even lottery ticket sales people say that tickets still move, but with fewer dollars spent per person.
Bradley noted, "The New Hampshire gamblers were fine with lowering their entertainment budgets and finding cheaper ways to gamble. They also said they had cut traveling and lodging expenses from the gambling budget, reinforcing the Bradley Theory that Las Vegas lost its recession resistance when it diversified its product."
