The Responsible Gaming Council Poker Poll

Toronto, ON - An Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of the Responsible Gaming Council finds that 21% of adult Ontarians play poker for money. In fact, 4% or nearly 350,000, play "often".

How often are they playing? 16% are playing poker for money with friends, family, and/or colleagues once a week or more often; 8% play online once a week or more frequently; and 4% of Ontarians who play poker for money are playing at a bar and/or a casino at least once a week.

And, some are playing more often than they used to. Thinking back over the past two years, one-third (33%) of Ontarians who play poker for money say they are playing more frequently with friends, family, and/or colleagues; 18% are spending more time online playing poker; and 14% are playing more poker in bars and/or casinos than they were two years ago.

So what's the appeal of playing poker for money? For some it's the money. Asked what they like about playing poker for money, the most commonly volunteered response was the chances of winning at 30%. In fact, 20% of poker players think poker is a good way to earn money (vs. 8% of all Ontarians), 4% think they could make a living of it (2% all Ontarians), and 10% say they sometimes find themselves spending more money than they can afford to.

Two-thirds of Ontarians think playing poker for money online or in a casino/bar is a problem today (69% and 67%, respectively) and another 37% think playing poker for money with friends/family/colleagues is a problem. In fact, 6% of poker players say at times they are concerned about how much poker they play and 5% fear that they may be headed toward a gambling problem. Moreover, among all Ontarians, two in ten (18%) are concerned about a friend's poker playing.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid/Responsible Gaming Council poll conducted from February 21 to March 2, 2006. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1003 adult Ontarians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within +/-3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Ontario population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to Census data.

Full tabular results are available in the attached factum and tables

For more information or to schedule a media interview, please contact:

Jennifer McLeod
Senior Research Manager
Ipsos Reid Publc Affairs
(416) 324-2900
[email protected]

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