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The Popular Article Itself - How Covid 19 Has Affected This Sector
Coronavirus has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide while bringing global economies to a halt and the recovery process is going to be slow. 2020 has seen a devastating pandemic bring the world to a standstill.
Some outside observers may have little sympathy for the financial impact felt by multi-million-pound industries but that is a short-sighted view. Sport and its associated sectors bring in vital revenue to the economy and that is the key concern in the wake of Covid-19.
The gambling sector is one area that has had to work exceptionally hard since Coronavirus brought the sporting world to a halt in March. With no sport taking place, no stakes are made and that’s an obvious concern.
Sports betting companies rarely specialize in one form of gambling. Head to any sportsbook and players can likely switch to casino and poker while some brands also offer lottery and bingo play as part of their overall package.
Some of the biggest names have admitted that they were looking to encourage their customers to seek out other areas of their service and there has been some success in this regard. Amongst all the available options, poker has stood out and the interest in the game has never been higher.
A recent report confirms that online poker play has risen by 43 percent since social distancing and lockdown measures started to come in around the world. Not only that, the number of first-time poker players heading online has increased by a mighty 255 percent.
Those are impressive numbers and they should give operators hope moving forward. For now, however, it’s all about battling the current storm.
While Coronavirus had a devastating effect on the sporting calendar from March onwards, some fixtures continued to take place. It’s been widely publicized that the Belarusian Premier League flew a lone flag for European football but other global leagues either carried on or, in the case of Vietnam, came back onto the schedules very quickly.
On May 16, the German Bundesliga came back and while the ‘ghost games’, played in front of empty stadiums, were met with a mixed reaction, betting operators would have surely been delighted to see top-flight football on the agenda.
Elsewhere, several sports, including basketball, soldiered on, while ice hockey in Eastern Europe also saw some action. Along with virtual sports and bets on entertainment and political markets, the betting community had some options but was this enough to satisfy the operators competing in a restricted sector?
Gambling operators tend to release their revenue figures sometime in arrears, so the exact financial impact won’t be made available just yet. Early indicators have, however, been concerning with some of the major providers reporting losses for the first quarter in comparison with 2019.
It’s been tough for all involved as, while Covid-19 has been impacting the world since the start of 2020, few would have predicted losing so many sporting fixtures over several months. Among all the concerns there is, however, some good news.
The immediate concern for sportsbooks is to get more sport back onto the fixture list as soon as possible. The German Bundesliga was the first to make a move post-Covid-19 but there are other top leagues set to come in.
Italy, Spain, England, and Sweden are among several European countries who are targeting a June return for their top-flight matches and that’s a hopeful scenario as far as the bookmakers are concerned.
Moving beyond that initial phase, the mid and long-term futures of companies will be open to speculation. The betting industry is a crowded market and it would be no surprise to see some of the smaller operators close their doors during the second half of 2020 and into 2021.
The horizon may, however, be brighter as a whole. In America, which first opened its doors to the potential for online sports betting in 2018, may now move at a faster pace where more individual states allow operators to do business within the county lines.
Elsewhere, that rise in poker play could be significant in months and years to come. Operators will hope that many of those new players will be retained and when the sport returns in its entirety, those customers will play on multiple areas of their gambling platforms.
The future is certainly unclear but, depending on several factors, it may be brighter for the betting industry than some are currently forecasting.