Few industries have escaped the chaos wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial uncertainty that abounds right at the moment has caused economic damage on a vast scale, and we are certainly not out of the woods yet. Layoffs and unemployment figures are constantly in the news, and until we have a vaccine, nobody can say with any certainty what the future holds.
One industry that suffered a lot in the first few months of the pandemic was the online gambling industry. Many are wishing they had paid better attention to the advise of expert SEO companies life linkpirates.com so that they were prepared for the onslaught of bored potential customers. In this article, we take a look at how extensive was the damage done and what the prospects are moving forward.
Impact of Sports Suspension
One of the most surreal impacts of the coronavirus outbreak was an almost overnight shutdown of the vast majority of professional sports leagues and events around the world. The NBA was called out practically midway through a match. To the disbelief of sports fans everywhere, all the other major sports leagues in North America and Europe quickly followed suit.
While this was a disaster for fans of teams who were on the cusp of sealing something special, no industry was hit worse than the sports betting industry. Profits were wiped out overnight, forcing a serious rethink about budgets and financial projections in boardrooms around the world.
Oct 10, 2020; Clemson, South Carolina, USA; Clemson Tigers running back Travis Etienne (9) leaps over Miami Hurricanes safety Gurvan Hall, Jr. (26) during the third quarter at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ken Ruinard-USA TODAY Sports
Online Casinos
One area of the online gambling industry that was not hit as hard was the betting sites not on gamstop sector. While many of us were having to tighten our belts due to unemployment or salary drops, the fortune of many online casino operators began to look quite rosy.
One of the reasons for this upturn in business was the higher demand for entertainment caused by the lockdown. People around the world suddenly had an awful lot of extra time on their hands and not much in the way of entertainment from sports or the arts to occupy them. This caused a massive uptick in the number sign-ups and punters who had not logged into their online casino accounts in years returned to swell the coffers.
The Future
The saving grace for many of the largest sports betting sites is that they have taken steps in recent years to diversify their business models by incorporating live casino games into their platforms. This has helped them to remain profitable against what sometimes seems like an inexorable tide toward economic meltdown in other sectors.
With the return of the major sports leagues and seemingly (knock on wood) little chance that they will be suspended again, even if there are more incidences of national lockdown measures being imposed by governments, sports betting sites can be much more optimistic about the future. In many ways, it is simply a case of business as usual now.
Like any other industry, the online gambling industry was seriously threatened by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Fortunately, it seems like online gambling is one of the most shock-proof industries out there, and we have seen a recent resurgence that is the envy of other sectors of the economy.
