In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world badly, causing worldwide lockdowns and profoundly impacting the lives of millions of people. Many industries were affected by the pandemic, and gambling was one of these industries that have changed seriously within the last year.
When people feel depressed or frustrated, they tend to cheer themselves up by breaking the routine with some activities, and gambling is one of these activities people prefer to do in various situations. International lockdowns forced people to stay at their homes, and some of them were laid off from their jobs while others had to stay with a minimum wage. Usually, people will be considering gambling to get out of depression, but unfortunately, site-based casinos were also closed. This opened the door to online gambling to take over the market and dominate. This article will talk about how COVID-19 affected online casinos positively and negatively. Although there is nothing positive with the pandemic, we’ll be talking business-wise. Now that we are recovering from the pandemic, you can still enjoy some online gambling, and to make your experiment more exciting, Men’s Journal put together a list of great online casinos.
An increasing number of gamblers
Lockdown restrictions were surprising and caused a lot of trouble to millions of people worldwide. Some people turned to online gambling to fill their empty times, while others thought of online gambling as an escape from their financial crisis. Some countries forecasted this behavior during the early days of the lockdowns and issued some temporary restrictions to eliminate access to online gambling websites as much as possible. It was intended to fight this phenomenon that was spreading crazily among the public. Although people are responsible for their decisions, but not when they are thinking abnormally due to force major that hit their lives suddenly.
According to a study led by the University of Bristol, “regular gamblers were more than six times more likely to gamble online compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research” Another research performed by Statista in Italy found that revenues from online poker tournaments went up from 7.2 million to 16 million euros in March 2020.
A minority of people reduced their gambling behavior during the lockdown due to their low income. They preferred to save the money for worst days.
Sports gambling lost its position
Although online casinos went beyond the expectations with online games like table gambling games and slot machines, the sports betting industry was rapidly falling down. The lockdown led to an international pause on professional sports, which heavily affected online sports betting. According to Statista, this section achieved a turnover of 71 million Euros by March 2020, losing over 35 million Euros compared with the same time in 2019.
Why did online gambling become so popular?
Previously in our article, we have focused on people’s will to gamble while being on lockdowns, but many other factors have to be considered. The accessibility of online casinos made it the perfect destination for regular and new gamblers. People were spending hours on their mobile phones daily, and they found something to entrain them and release the stress. We all know how tempting online casinos can be with their bonuses and welcoming benefits. All these factors contributed to people’s decisions in a way or another.
The benefits of gambling in such conditions
Besides the opportunity of getting rich fast and being the escape gate people are dreaming about to change their lives dramatically, there are multiple other benefits of gambling in general and online gambling in specific. These benefits include reducing stress, killing boredom, and pushing the brain to function and develop more skills while playing, especially at high-end table games. Some people would describe gambling similarly as drug addiction that keeps the brain asking for it.
Conclusion
We all hope humanity will never have to face something as bad as COVID-19 in the future. Still, it is always an excellent approach to learn from the past, and review was the primary behavior that people followed when they were under the pressure of lockdowns and couldn’t leave their residential places.
