How The Gambling Industry Has Performed During Covid-19

During the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, the global economy has taken a serious hit, with some industries permanently damaged by the outbreak and its disastrous effects.

Other industries have benefitted from the lockdown, with online businesses doing particularly well from half of the world being at home. One world that straddles both the online and offline space is that of gambling. With a massive online market yet also remaining popular in terms of brick and mortar bettings shops and casinos, it can be difficult to understand how gambling has been impacted by Covid-19.

One thing is clear, many of those who previously visited betting shops and casinos have been making the move online. These players face the issue of having to learn a lot about online gambling in a short space of time. If this is something you can relate to, for info on games like Rainbow Riches you can read more here.

In this article, we will take a close look at how the gambling industry has performed during Covid-19, looking into what the situation appears to be for both online and offline gambling.

So, without further ado, let’s take a dive into how the gambling industry has performed during Covid-19.

The situation for the online gambling industry

It’s clear from both the stats and just a little common sense that the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a boost to the online gambling industry across the globe. With sports betting, bingo and brick and mortar betting shops all locked down, punters are moving their attention to online casinos in a bid to find some fun.

In the UK alone, online slots and poker usage has increased by 25% and 38% each. By the peak of the pandemic, many experts predict these numbers to rise even higher. Indeed, a spokesperson for the mobile slots casino fruityking.co.uk said the site had seen a surge of new users in recent months.

Only time will tell if this boost to the online gambling world will continue after the pandemic. Certainly, the hope within the business is that newcomers to online gaming will make their switch permanent upon realising the freedom and variety available online in comparison with brick and mortar.

The situation for brick and mortar gambling establishments

On the whole, data suggests that gambling revenues are down throughout the global industry. Although online activity has skyrocketed, this has not been sufficient to balance the losses felt through next to no activity in the world’s betting shops and casinos.

It seems that, even in this age of increased technological capacities, the kings of gambling are still the twin pillars of casinos and betting shops. With sport cancelled across the globe, the enormous world sports betting industry has also ground to a halt, taking with it billions of dollars of revenue.

On top of this, the billions that would have come in from casinos across the globe in hotspots such as Macau, Las Vegas and Singapore have also been lost.

With this said, there are hopes that the brick and mortar gambling industry will return to its previous rude health once the pandemic winds down. In the meantime, the online industry is doing more than its fair share of keeping the gambling industry as a whole in a good situation.