Another month of rising online gambling traffic

Latest numbers from the independent internet measurement and monitoring organisation ComscoreMedia show that online gambling sites saw another month of increased traffic propelled by online poker tournaments, sports betting and interest due to legislative debates on the subject.
“Web activity was largely impacted by the midterm election in October which drove increased traffic to political news sites, while online gambling sites saw gains due to interest in the 2010 World Series of Poker,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of the company.
With the midterm elections approaching in early November, Americans visited political news sites in October to stay up-to-date on campaign developments and voter news and information. The category attracted 27.4 million visitors in October, up 12 percent versus September. CNN Politics led the category with 7.8 million unique visitors during the month (up 3 percent) followed by PoliticsDaily with 5.1 million visitors (up 10 percent) and RealClearPolitics.com with 3.1 million (up 79 percent). BarackObama.com jumped four positions in the ranking to capture the #4 spot with 2.1 million visitors, up 221 percent. The Economist group followed with 2.0 million visitors while Politico.com grew 11 percent to 1.7 million visitors.
Online gambling internet activity again surged strongly during October as the World Series of Poker neared its conclusion. The category drew nearly 32 million visitors during the month, up 114 percent versus September, making it the highest growing site category for the second consecutive month.
FullTiltPoker captured the top spot with 4.7 million visitors (up 12 percent), followed by PokerStars with 2.5 million visitors. UB.com drew 1.8 million visitors with its month-long ‘Perfect Play’ promotion. Kingolotto came in fourth with 1.7 million visitors (up 23 percent) followed by Absolute Poker with 1.6 million (up 19 percent) and Sportingbet PLC with 1.4 million (up 39 percent).
Top traffic sites overall on the internet were again headed by Google with 180.8 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 179.6 million and Microsoft Sites with 170.6 million. Facebook.com ranked #4 with 151.1 million visitors, the first time it has surpassed the 150 million visitor threshold.
Google Ad Network also led the October Ad Focus ranking with a reach of 93.4 percent of Americans online, followed by Yahoo! Network Plus with an 86.3-percent reach and AOL Advertising with 86.2 percent.