The number of Americans playing at online casinos is on the rise, according to a recent poll, despite the harsh measures that have been taken to outlaw the practice in the US.

The rise has not come without a price though, with land-based casinos suffering a drop in attendance.

The survey, which was published by the London-based market research company Mintel, found that 12 percent of adult respondents had visited an online casino or gambling website in the past 12 months, despite laws aimed at cracking down on financial transactions with online gambling companies.

The 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) effectively banned Internet gambling in the country by outlawing the transfer of funds from financial institutions to gambling websites.

According to Mintel's survey results, men visited online gambling sites around five times in the past year, compared to once for women in the same period.

The same survey found that only 30 percent of adults visited a land-based casino in the past year, a sharp drop from the 35 percent that visited a land-based casino in 2001.

Of those that did visit a land-based casino, 27 percent did so at an Indian reservation, 24 percent went west to Las Vegas, and 12 percent stayed on the east coast in New Jersey's Atlantic City.

Adults in the 25-34 year-old age bracket were most likely to visit a casino, with 56 percent making the visit at some stage in the past year.

Mintel concluded that the younger age brackets were yet to feel the burden on financial responsibilities, and therefore were more likely to go to casinos.

Interestingly, 55 percent of respondents said they expect to lose when they gamble, and were just doing it for fun, proving that most treat gambling as they would any other form of entertainment. On the other hand, some 20 percent of respondents said that they win more often than lose.