Reflecting the technology's relatively recent introduction, 59 percent of those age 18 to 29 play at least sometimes, double the rate for people age 50 to 64. There is little difference among users by race or region, with middle-income earners likeliest to indulge.

"It's something to take your mind off business and everything else," said Todd Williams, 33, a salesman from Lexington, Ky., who estimates he plays 10 hours weekly, especially interactive adventure games. "I guess it's the time, which is seldom, that I spend alone."

Sales of games and gaming hardware are rising steadily, said David Riley, marketing director of the NPD Group, a market research firm. He estimates that video and computer game sales this year will total $19 billion in the U.S., up from $13.5 billion last year.

Even so — and despite the publicity given to newer game consoles like the Nintendo Wii, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 — the proportion of adults saying they play electronic games was virtually unchanged from April 2006, when an AP-AOL poll asked the same question.

Casual games like card or board games were the favorite of 31 percent of gamers, about twice the number who like action games, the next most popular alternative. About half of women cited casual games as their favorites, triple the number of men who did so, while twice as many males than females preferred action games.

Adventure, strategy and sports games were also among the most popular.

The poll also found that among gamers:

• 44 percent said they play over the Internet;

• 26 percent said they spent nothing on the pastime last year, another 46 percent spent up to $200 and 12 percent spent $500 or more, with men usually the bigger spenders;

• Price is the chief factor for people purchasing a gaming console, followed by the availability of games.

The poll involved telephone interviews with 2,016 adults conducted Oct. 9-11 and 16-18, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Included were 770 people who said they play computer or video games, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 points.