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Gaming versus gambling ARPUs

Online poker revenue datapoint
This article on the online poker industry in Italy was interesting enough that I had to post it:

Online poker players in Italy spend an average of $881 per person a year on the pastime producing a yearly haul of $514 million according to a new survey released as the nation’s Government gets set to legalise, license and control Internet gambling.

Normalized down to month, this nets out to $73 ARPU/month!

I have no idea how this compares to the broader set of online gambling, or if it mostly has to do with the specific demographics in Italy.

Comparison to virtual good games
Compare this some numbers that Jeremy Liew posted in his excellent analysis on free-to-play and Facebook app monetization.

  • Second Life: $9.30 ARPU/month
  • Club Penguin: $1.62 ARPU/month
  • Habbo Hotel: $1.30 ARPU/month
  • Runescape: $0.84 ARPU/month
  • Facebook apps: $1.20 ARPU/month
Given that games and gambling go (somewhat) hand-in-hand, at least in terms of product and design, I’m curious what you might be able to learn in one that you could apply to the other. This is similar to the common belief that the techniques in the online direct response world all trace their roots in the adult industry.

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Written by Andrew Chen
September 6th, 2008 at 7:55 am
  • Gopi

    Poker is good but the ARPU's of house games like blackjack are much more. But Poker has a wide appeal so i guess its makes up in volume.

  • http://andrewchen.typepad.com Andrew Chen

    gopi, do you have any sense for what the ARPUs for blackjack are? Any idea of dollar amount?

  • Julien

    check out this article, there is some interesting figures about online gambling.

    http://www.poker-king.com/poker-king-articles.p…

    very good blog Andrew.

  • thepocker

    Thanks for sharing

    free online game

  • http://www.doovde.com dave

    If your into online poker like me you might want to check this out! I have a poker blog! Online Poker Blog

  • icianician

    thanks!

  • http://www.gambling.ph gambling

    Online gambling is going to overwhelm just about any other industry. Let's not forget about
    the whales that gamble 30 or 40 thousand dollars a month at the online casinos. Yes, it does happen.

  • http://www.castigapenet.com CastigaPeNet

    I love to play to casino online!

  • http://www.bingotime.co.uk bingo uk

    quite big ARPU, no wonder there are lots of gambling sites, like casinos are everywhere
    i wonder how much ARPU the bingo sites are getting from it's player

  • http://www.casinocouponspot.com/ Casino Coupons

    The thing is that online gambling is played largely by adults while Runescape and the like are mainly played by kids (up to 24, let's say) so it's not really a like to like comparison. The mindset is also very different between the two.

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