eCOGRA survey justifies Internet gambling forums

The study was commissioned by the e-Commerce Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA) independent standards authority and conducted by England's Nottingham Trent University.

Over 11,000 respondents were questioned and 40 per cent stated that they regularly use forums to ascertain everything from the current US political and legal situation and the mathematics of gambling odds to responsible gambling, business news and game preferences.

Top boards have memberships in the thousands and offer a wide range of topics every day along with, in some cases, genuine mediation services for players with disputes that have proved impossible to settle directly.

As an example, one of the oldest and most respected forums, Casinomeister.com, has been around for ten years and has thousands of members. In addition to the normal forums, it provides e-newsletters along with webcasting. Its Webmaster, Bryan Bailey, stated that 373 new topics were opened in June with a total of 5,190 posts.

In addition, the study found that online casino staffers wanting to keep up to date with the industry along with player trends also visit sites and find the information exchanged and the perceptions harvested valuable.