It is well known that people like to play a lot on British territory. The English are considered to be one of the leading gambling nations, but are by no means the exception. The Irish enjoy a very similar reputation, which has now been underlined once again by a study by the Irish health authorities. As they found out, two-thirds of all Irish regularly gamble for money.

Interesting study published by the Ministry of Health

Just like in Germany, the Irish authorities have some time problems in some cases. For example with the evaluation of this study, because it was carried out by the Irish Ministry of Health in 2014 and 2015. The evaluation has now taken a good four years, so the people in Ireland were all the more excited about the results. 7,005 people who were at least 15 years of age were questioned as part of the study. At the same time, they were only permanent residents and not prisoners, homeless people or people residing in public institutions. The results of the study were then evaluated in such a way that they can be viewed as representative of the entire Irish population.

And what was the result? What is particularly surprising is how many Irish people place their bets in online casino reviews. Sun gave almost 65 percent of all respondents said that they in some form of gambling in the past year  have participated. More than 40 percent said they gamble at least once a month.

Irish with a penchant for stationary gambling

The study by the Ministry of Health becomes particularly interesting when it comes to the type of gambling. Here the Irish are obviously different from their neighbors from Great Britain. While online gambling is growing regularly there, the Irish still prefer stationary operations. Only 4.3 percent of respondents said that they would use online gambling offers . For comparison: with the scratch cards and lotteries, more than 56 percent of those surveyed stated that they played a part here or do so more often. It is also surprising in this context that the bookmakers also use sports betting cannot really be called a figurehead in Ireland. Two percent of those surveyed stated that they bet regularly or on a daily basis. However, only 1.8 percent of respondents said that they place their bets with online betting providers. It looks similar with irregular customers. Here, 22.2 percent of those who only bet once a month or less stated that they do so in stationary operations. Only 10.2 percent of those surveyed bet online in this target group. In Ireland, 15.3 percent of those who bet once a week go to a bookmaker in a stationary business , and 12.7 percent of those surveyed even do so before they go to a horse or greyhound race.

Almost 10 percent of children aged 15 to 17 have already played

Traditionally, horse and greyhound races are hugely popular in Ireland, just as they are in England. These are often combined with an excursion, which is why the children can often be found near the tracks on race days - and thus also near the betting opportunities. And there are obviously problems here, because almost ten percent of those surveyed between the ages of 15 and 17 statedthat they had already bet on the outcome of a horse race. More than five percent said they had placed bets with a bookmaker in a different way. The Ministry of Health is particularly critical of the fact that, for all forms of gambling, 24.9 percent of 15 to 17-year-olds stated that they had already taken part in gambling. Since children under the age of 15 were not taken into account here, the number is likely to rise again significantly as the age range widens.

The study also found out in an interesting way that gambling is now firmly anchored in all strata of society . The proportion of players from the field of managing directors or top officials is more than 68 percent. At 71.4 percent, this is even greater at the middle management level or among civil servants in middle service. People who are dependent on government support, make up around 62.7 percent of all players and thus the smallest proportion of these three professional groups. According to the study, men are more likely to struggle with gambling problems. Accordingly, less than one percent of women between the ages of 25 and 34 show an urge to problematic gaming behavior. For men in the same age group, the Irish rate is 2.9 percent.