How many gamblers in Ireland?

Pub07

I was just talking with my brother about how many people in Ireland would be considered regular punters. I was saying probably 500,000, he estimates it would be much lower although he couldn't come up with a figure. What do people here reckon?

And any estimations on how many Irish people are online punters compared to how many would place the vast majority/all of their bets in a bookies?

ArmaniJeanss

If you count Lotto players as part of the total punters then I'd estimate around 1.5M.

Or do you just mean horse/sportsbetting punters, in which case extrapolating from my own social group I'd say around 150K people.

5starpool

if you count Poker as well, but not lotto or scratchcards etc, then I would imagine that regular punters (once a week at least) would number somewhere around 150k as well. I think 500k is a little much really. For example I might not meet you criteria of being a punter (haven't placed a bet in years in a bookies shop or online on a sports event), but I play a hell of a lot of poker, and I know a good few poker players who don't gamble on horses, football etc, although I guess they might be in the minority, but there are still a significant number.

redfan

well what i want to know . is how many big time gamblers there are..
and are they gambling with soccer or horses. and do they go on forum or leauge possition etc home away etc

ArmaniJeanss

redfan wrote: »

and are they gambling with soccer or horses. and do they go on forum or leauge possition etc home away etc

Sorry redfan, there is no magic formula. It takes a lot of hard work.
Basically the pro punter will have a very good idea (to within a % or 2) of what price every outcome in an event should be.
So to use your example he'll use form/league position (and loads of other variables) to come up with the price, and if the price he comes up with is bigger than the bookies then he'll have a bet.

So team A may be 5 places higher and have the better form and be at home, but if the price on Team B is bigger than the price the punter believes they should be then it'll be team B he'll bet on.

This is the fundamental principle of betting. You don't bet who you believe will win (to an extent you have no real opinion on who will win), you just back when you consider the price to be wrong.

Pub07

I suppose I am talking about pure sports betting - no lotto or poker, nothing against either of these, I play em both myself hehe.

With so many bookies in Ireland and it seems every other person you talk to is having a punt, I would've thought that a 150K estimate is a little on the low side.

ninebeanrows

I would estimate 1/8 are regular poker or sport betting type and alot more play the lotto.

punchestown

Wait until the bookies get those dreaded FOBT's licensed. These things are the crack cocaine of gambling and will be the ruination of many in years to come.

Bubs101

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

This is the fundamental principle of betting. You don't bet who you believe will win (to an extent you have no real opinion on who will win), you just back when you consider the price to be wrong.

I've always had a problem with this. I understand and make value bets but if I am confident a team is going to win and the odds aren't quite as good as I think I'll still make the bet

hotspur

If you are looking for numbers then it's tricky as Ireland has never conducted a population study on gambling. What we can do is look to the % figures in the UK and then apply it to our population, we are broadly similar in our betting but I think we may be a bit more hardcore in our bookmaker betting if you look at the gross profits from it.

Okay in the UK, taking figures from the 2007 prevalence study, if you exclude those who only play the lotto 48% of the population had gambled in the past year.
For type of betting -
scratch cards 20%
bingo 7%
horses 17%
dogs 5%
bookmaker betting other than horses or dogs 6%
casino 4%
online gambling with bookie 4%

Please note that these are the %'s of the population who engaged in them, many people bet on both horses(17%) and dogs(5%) for example, you cannot add these % together and say that 23% bet on horses and dogs because they are not mutually exclusive.

Okay so 48% of people have bet on non-lotto gambling in the past year so that's a shade over 2 million people in the Republic. But that is only having gambled not regular punters.
I'm not sure what you mean by regular punter, but lets say once a week is a good definition. Of all those who bet horses 5% do it once a week, dogs 4%, other bookie betting 9%, online bookie betting 9%, bingo is big with 22%, casino low with 1%. Remember these are not % of total population they are % of the people who did it in last year.

So let's put numbers on it. Out of population of ~ 4.35m
17% have bet horse ~ 740k
of them 5% are weekly ~ 37,000
So we can say there are 37,000 weekly horse bettors in Ireland. As I explained earlier because the betting activities are not mutually exclusive we cannot add them up to get an aggregate number of regular weekly bookie punters. Actually the scientists doing the study did add them up but they were stupid to do it.

So unfortunately we don't get to a good number with precision. But guessing at the number of weekly horse/dog/or other bookie bettors in the Republic of Ireland I would say that 50k might be a reasonable figure. I could try to get a better figure using other population studies, but I'm only settling an argument between a bloke and his brother here

internelligent

Casinos in Dublin are pretty much jammed at about 3am after nightclubs close. I've been there a few times and at times it's difficult to get a seat at a BJ table or fit in anywhere at a roulette table. Scary stuff when you see some of the crazy bets that some people place.