Betting on Adult Entertainment Websites’ Popularity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

If you’re bored at home in this time of no sports, you’ve probably perused some of the more risqué sites on the internet. Three of the ten most viewed websites in the world are porn sites, and they are sure to see an uptick in traffic over the coming weeks as more and more employees get told to work from home and stay inside because of social distancing. Since there’s not much in the sporting world to bet on, BetOnline has decided to open futures markets for the most popular porn site in the United States, Pornhub.

WHERE WILL PORNHUB RANK IN TERMS OF TOP RANKED WEBSITES IN MARCH 2020? (FROM SIMILARWEB)

OVER 8.5 GLOBAL RANK -150
UNDER 8.5 GLOBAL RANK +110

Pornhub was the tenth most visited website in the world in January 2020, but it surpassed fellow adult entertainment website Xnxx to move up to ninth in the rankings in February 2020. Traffic to Xnxx dropped 7.76 percent in the shortened month, but Pornhub’s traffic only dropped 6.31 percent, leading to the website moving up in the global rankings.
While visits are the most important metric in this calculation, average visit duration, pages seen per visit, and bounce rate are all part of the formula. That will make it very difficult for Pornhub to surpass the eighth website on the list (Wikipedia), but there’s a decent chance it moves by current top porn site Xvideos.

HOW MANY TOTAL VISITS WILL PORNHUB HAVE IN MARCH 2020?

OVER 3 BILLION -320
UNDER 3 BILLION +210

Over the last six months, Pornhub has not had more than three billion visits in any month. The website was close in January with 2.99 billion views, but it fell nine million views short of the mark. Given the free time everyone now has working from home though, that number is expected to skyrocket over the latter half of the month. Daily visits have been on a steady rise over the last week, and that should lead to Pornhub moving past the milestone. I wonder how they will celebrate the achievement.

WHERE WILL PORNHUB RANK IN TERMS OF MOST POPULAR WEBSITES IN THE UNITED STATES IN MARCH 2020?

OVER 6.5 -200
UNDER 6.5 +150

It’s going to be very difficult for Pornhub to break into the top six websites in the United States. Monoliths like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter are ahead of them, and it will be impossible for Pornhub to pass any of those sites. The website’s best hope is to move past a vestige of old school digital media in Yahoo, but older generations still check out the website on a frequent basis. Additionally, Pornhub must watch its rear as Wikipedia and Instagram are both within striking distance. Wikipedia will become even more popular as students turn to the website more and more with school moving to online formats, and Instagram is exploding with everyone bored at home. That makes the over on this prop a strong play.

HOW MUCH OF PORNHUB’S TRAFFIC PERCENTAGE WILL COME FROM THE UNITED STATES IN MARCH 2020?

OVER 24.5 PERCENT +200
UNDER 24.5 PERCENT -300

This is very tough to gauge. In February, 23.05 percent of Pornhub’s traffic came from the United States, making Americans by far the largest consumers of Pornhub. Japan was the country with the second-highest percentage of visits (9.32 percent), while Germany, France, and the United Kingdom rounded out the top five. With most of the world on lockdown, it’s hard to imagine that Americans will be more prone to search for content like this than other countries, but American Exceptionalism is certainly a real thing in this area.