Indiana’s Most Popular Gambling Games

Residents of The Hoosier State have been fortunate enough to have online sports betting in Indiana since 2019. But, despite the popularity of sports betting in the country, it’s not the most popular gambling niche in Indiana.

The Hoosier Lottery is by far the most-played gambling game in the state. Following the lottery, slot machines are the second most popular gambling niche in the State of Indiana. This is according to a recent study completed by Indiana University’s Prevention Insights¹.

The institution strived to discover and document the gambling habits of adults across Indiana. The initiative was funded by the Indiana University School of Public Health Bloomington and executed by Prevention Insights.

The study methodology included the random distribution of 5,400 surveys to households drawn by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University. Only residents in the household with the most recent birthday were eligible to answer the questionnaire.

Researchers believed that this would be proportional to the adult population within the ten planning regions. Prevention Insights’ research objective was to ascertain what gambling games the public played in 2022. We are summarizing their findings and what this means for the gambling industry in Indiana’s future.

The Most Popular Gambling Games in Indiana

Lottery gaming is overwhelmingly the most prominent type of gambling in Indiana. After a response rate of 19.1 percent with 855 surveys completed, the study concluded that 66.1% of residents in Indiana played any lottery game over the last year.

That equates to roughly two-thirds of the questionnaires that were completed and returned. There wasn’t another type of gambling that came close to the allure of big jackpots offered on lottery tickets to the public.

The availability of lottery tickets at convenience stores and gas stations makes the games accessible to a wide segment of the public. The potential to get rich off a small bet is appealing to gamblers.

Following the lottery, casino gaming was Indiana’s most popular form of gambling. The survey estimated that 55.3 percent of the population visited a casino to gamble. In particular, gamblers in Indiana were attracted to slot machines.

Roughly 16 percent of gamblers reported playing slot machines in the year prior to filling out the survey. That surpasses all other types of casino games.

Note that online slot machines were not included in this metric for casino gaming. However, online gambling had its own category on the questionnaire and it scored favorably.

With 37.1 percent indicating that they’ve gambled at online casinos in Indiana, the future looks promising for the online betting industry in the state.

2022 Adult Gambling Behaviors in Indiana Survey Results:

TYPE OF GAMBLING	POPULATION ESTIMATE	PERCENTAGE ESTIMATE
Any Gambling	4,281,628	89.3%
Lottery	3,286,556	66.1%
Casino	2,314,620	55.3%
Any Online Gaming	1,457,744	37.1%
Sports Betting	901,137	18.6%
Other Gambling	3,640,281	72.8%

Indiana Residents Gambling More Than US Average

One of the most significant takeaways from the study is that residents of Indiana are gambling more on average than the rest of the country.

In the United States, the national average pegged 88 percent of Americans gambling during the year of the survey. Conversely, 89.3 percent of Hoosiers have been estimated to gamble in 2022.

With the proliferation and growth of online gambling, the numbers should continue to tick up in Indiana. More young people are betting online, which will likely drive the projections northward.

According to Mary Lay, operations director of Prevention Insights and the Indiana Problem Gambling Awareness Program, “With gambling expansion throughout the years, and most recently the inclusion of sports betting, anyone can carry a gambling device in their hand: their phone²”.

Lottery games are prominently featured at the top of last year’s survey in Indiana. However, over the next twenty years, we should expect to see a gradual change toward online sports betting and online casino games being the most popular in the state.

From a quantitative approach, the statistics are telling us that this should happen. As the older demographics stop gambling, the younger gamblers are going to grab a significant chunk of the market share. They are not playing lottery games as much as the older generation.

Popularity of Gambling Games By Cities In Indiana

We have learned that slots and the lottery are the most popular gambling games in Indiana. However, how popular are certain gambling games in major Indiana cities?

Courtesy of Google Trends, we are examining keywords from over the last 12 months to draw some conclusions. The gambling games and keywords that we examined include slots, lottery, blackjack, casinos, and sports betting.

Find the results of our findings below:

Slots

Evansville has shown the most interest in slot machines in Indiana. Additionally, Evansville has shown more interest in slots than other popular areas in the region, including Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio³.

CITY	INTEREST (0-100)
Evansville	100
Terre Haute	87
South Bend	69
Indianapolis	50
Ft. Wayne	48

Lottery

According to Google Trends, major Indiana cities are not seeing as much interest in Google searches for the lottery as other major cities in the region. Louisville, Kentucky, has had the most interest in the lottery online among metropolitan cities in surrounding states and Indiana⁴.

What this could suggest is that lottery players do not use online resources as much as other gamblers in Indiana. According to the state’s numbers, there are a plethora of lottery players in Indiana. They are not showing interest in the lottery on Google, though.

CITY	INTEREST (0-100)
South Bend	54
Evansville	53
Ft. Wayne	43
Indianapolis	38
Terre Haute	32

Blackjack

Hoosiers love their blackjack. Out of the metropolitan cities in the region, Indiana has the Top 3 cities showing the most interest in blackjack on Google. South Bend, Ft. Wayne, and Lafayette are more interested in blackjack than Chicago, Illinois⁵.

CITY	INTEREST (0-100)
South Bend	100
Ft. Wayne	92
Lafayette	86
Indianapolis	81
Terre Haute	80

Casinos

Moreover, Indiana residents have shown a keen interest in searching for casinos on Google. The fourth-most “casinos” keyword searches from Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky are from the Hoosier State. Evansville, which has shown the most interest in slots, also leads in searches for casinos⁶.

CITY	INTEREST (0-100)
Evansville	100
Terre Haute	97
South Bend	96
Ft. Wayne	95
Indianapolis	70

Sports Betting

Cincinnati and Louisville are well-represented in Google searches for sports betting. They have the top two search queries on Google in the region. However, Indiana is showing interest, as well.

The home of Purdue University, Lafayette, ranks at the top of searches for sports betting in Indiana. Younger people are more interested in sports betting than older gamblers, so this aligns with those findings⁷.

CITY	INTEREST (0-100)
Lafayette	43
Indianapolis	42
South Bend	40
Ft. Wayne	39
Terre Haute	35

Future Gambling Trends In Indiana

The Indiana gambling survey revealed a great deal about who is betting on what. The results from the questionnaire discovered that younger individuals were more likely to bet online than their older counterparts.

In the 18-34 age group, 49.1 percent of individuals are estimated to gamble online. Additionally, 40.5 percent of the 34-54 age group have been gambling at an online casino. There is a steep drop off to 20.3 percent after the age of 55.

The same pattern emerged for sports betting in Indiana. 18.3 percent and 27.4 percent bet on sports in the first two cohorts, while only 9.9 percent of the 55+ population was estimated to wager on sports in the state.

What can we conclude from this assessment? Expect to see online gambling and sports betting take up much more of the pie in the future. Bettors who are currently in the younger demographic will assume the 55+ space in Indiana.

What Is The Best Online Casino To Gamble At In Indiana?

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