The many kinds of Kiwis who gamble

Monday, 22 September 2014, 1:37 pm
Press Release: Roy Morgan Research

A numbers game: the many kinds of Kiwis who place bets, play pokies, or buy scratch, lotto or keno tickets

3 in 5 Kiwis do at least some form of gambling within an average three months, from buying lotto or instant scratch tickets to placing a bet at the TAB or online. New segmentation analysis by Roy Morgan Research shows that people with little else in common may each be among the most likely to participate in a particular type of gambling.

In the year to April 2014, 60% of New Zealanders 18+ did some form of gambling, down from 65% four years ago. 53% of us buy lottery/lotto tickets at least once in an average three month period, 23% buy instant Kiwi/scratch tickets and 8% play the pokies.

% of Kiwis Gambling

The new Helix Personas segmentation tool shows that, as expected, these three most common forms of gambling appeal more to older, suburban or rural, and lower income New Zealanders in the Battler, Getting By and Golden Years communities. Those betting at the TAB or online, however, represent a broader spectrum of society—with some younger, wealthier and trendier professionals among the most likely to gamble this way.

For instance, ‘Young and Platinum’ Kiwis in the Metrotech community are highly educated, highly paid and ambitious urban trendsetters—and also the most likely to gamble online, at a rate 77% above the norm. Other Metrotechs such as the hard-working and fashionable ‘Quiet Achievers’ and the cultured, socially conscious ‘Health, Wealthy and Wise’ are also more likely than average to place bets online.

At the TAB, members of two distinct Helix communities are among the most likely to place a bet there: while four of the top ten most likely personas are the social, hip and high-earning Metrotechs, another four are low income, often welfare-dependent Battlers.

Pip Elliott, General Manager, Roy Morgan Research NZ, says:

“Our research clearly shows that many different types of people gamble, and different forms of gambling appeal to diverse sets of New Zealanders.

“Lottery and scratch tickets often appeal more to older people, often pensioners, while many of those more likely to buy scratch ticket or play poker machines are younger but still with limited incomes.

“But people at the TAB or betting online are more likely to be well-paid young professionals.”

Roy Morgan Research
Roy Morgan Research is Australia’s best known and longest established market research and public opinion survey company. Roy Morgan Single Source is thorough, accurate, and provides comprehensive, directly applicable information about current and future customers. It is unique in that it directs all the questions to each individual from a base survey sample of around 55,000 interviews in Australia and 15,000 interviews in New Zealand annually - the largest Single Source databases in the world. The questions asked relate to lifestyle and attitudes, media consumption habits (including TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema, catalogues, pay TV and the Internet), brand and product usage, purchase intentions, retail visitations, service provider preferences, financial information and recreation and leisure activities. This lead product is supported by a nationally networked, consultancy-orientated market research capability.

© Scoop Media

Roy Morgan Research

New Zealand's leading social and market research company

A full service research organisation specialising in omnibus and syndicated data, Roy Morgan Research has over 70 years' experience in collecting objective, independent information on consumers. Roy Morgan Research was set up in New Zealand in the 1990s and has been collecting information across a wide range of industries in New Zealand ever since. Roy Morgan currently has over 10 years of trended data on a geographically and demographically representative sample of over 12,000 New Zealanders aged 14+.

Contact Roy Morgan Research

• Website - www.roymorgan.com