Online Lotto: The Next Online Poker?

In the early 2000's, not many people were playing online poker, and when they did it just wasn't for very much money.  Then the game really took off in 2003 and became one of the most popular forms of online gambling.

In the years since, online poker has somewhat leveled off in popularity.  Thousands still play the game nationwide, but the growth that online poker experienced in the last few years just simply doesn't measure up to the boom times.

So where is that growth going?  An increasingly popular form of online gambling is playing the lotto online.  Online lotto sites have become more and more ubiquitous over the last couple of years.  While that growth isn't necessarily coming at the expense of online poker, it does seem as if at least some of the online gambling revenue that was going to poker is now going to online lotto.  Obviously there aren't a ton of parallels between poker, which is largely a game of skill, and lotto, which is essentially straight gambling. 

What's the appeal?  The lottery is one of the most historically popular ways for people to gamble, and putting lottos on the internet certainly hasn't done anything to tarnish that reputation.  In fact, the internet has done lotteries across the world the favor of opening up their lottos to players from just about anywhere on the map.

Is online lotto a fad destined to fade away?  It's difficult to predict anything with absolute certainty, but the likely answer is no.  The internet brings such an ease to the game of lotto, and the choice for players are increasing at such a rate that it really seems as if online lotto has quite a long way to go before running out of steam.