Whilst Italy were winners of the 2006 FIFA World Cup on the pitch, according to the provider of internet research Nielsen//NetRatings, over one in four of the UK online population (5.9 million people) visited a sports or gambling website during the World Cup (9 June – 9 July).
This audience of almost six million UK visitors viewed over 420 million sports and gambling web-pages in total – averaging 71 pages per person. The sports and gambling audience was two-thirds male. Over 40% of the audience were at least 45 years old.
Overall, gambling sites tended to be twice as ‘sticky’ as sports sites. Bet365 was the ‘stickiest’ site – its average visitor spending 2 hours 9 minutes on the site during the tournament. Ladbrokes was the site most likely to be popular with the under 25s, SkyBet with 25-44 year olds and the Telegraph Sport with those aged 45 or over.
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