Like restaurants, bars, night clubs and so many other public places that closed down due to the covid-19 pandemic, so did the casino’s. And in most countries they stayed closed for multiple months, starting around March. Footage of the Las Vegas strip being completely empty was a very strange sight that was shown on a lot of news feeds. You can imagine how financially disastrous it is for the casino’s on the strip, that rake in billions of dollars a year, to be completely closed to the public. In the meantime, people that like to gamble were in a predicament during those months as well, with nowhere to go. And while it’s illegal in some places, online gambling offers the opportunity to gamble from the comfort of your own home to those that couldn’t wait for the casino’s to open back up.
Whether it’s online poker or sports betting, due to its convenience, online gambling has gained in popularity and has gotten a larger and larger online presence, fuelled even more by the pandemic. If we take the U.S. as an example, gambling is regulated through state law, which means that each state has their own rules regarding online gambling. Only four states currently allow online table games like blackjack, and eighteen states allow sports betting. Sports betting however, has only been legal in these states for less than two years, and in these years new bookmaking companies like DrafKings (whose share value doubled since they were listed in April) and Fanduel have gained enormous popularity.
The online sports betting market doubled from 6.5 billion dollars in 2018, to 13 billion dollars in 2019 and the growth rate isn’t predicted to come to a halt anytime soon. It’s growing so rapidly that in the recent months, lots of legalization bills for online gambling are being pushed by state lawmakers. The tax benefits from online gambling, estimated at a whopping 195 million dollars for the state of California alone for example, could make up for a big part of tax income lost because of the pandemic.
With the convenience of online gambling, and the trend of legalization currently taking place, there is a big chance that the online gambling market will keep growing rapidly. This however, raises concerns with addiction prevention watchdogs. Since gambling is now easily accessible anytime of the day, wherever you are, it’s easier for people to get addicted, or for clean addicts to relapse. This is only worsened by the pandemic, with online search interest into online casino’s reaching an all-time high last May in the UK for example.
There’s a lot of convenience, but also risk of addiction involved for people who wouldn’t normally go to a casino, but like the idea of betting some money online. Let me know what you think of this trend, and if you believe it should be regulated more strictly to reduce the chance of addiction.
References
Bruning, C. (2020). Why Online Gambling Stocks Will Surge in 2021. [online] www.nasdaq.com. Available at: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/why-online-gambling-stocks-will-surge-in-2021-2020-09-09
Homer, A. (2020). Coronavirus: Gambling addiction treatments paused as staff redeployed. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-53351411
The Economist. (2020). Covid-19 has driven American gamblers online. [online] Available at: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/06/07/covid-19-has-driven-american-gamblers-online.
Hi Antonie, thanks for the interesting article.
In my opinion, it makes a lot of sense that online gambling gained a lot of popularity over the last months. not only did people shift from real casinos to the online ones, but they probably also gained a lot of new customers as people got bored during quarantine.
The problem you are proposing is a serious problem and I agree with you that making gambling so accessible can be very dangerous for a lot of people who are easily addicted. On the other hand, entering a casino and placing a €10 euro bet on red is not too difficult either. Obviously, these small amounts of money are not the real problem, but they are definitely the source of the problem.
While some casinos have policies that aim to early detect possible addicts, and help them early on to prevent them from becoming a real addict, there are also a lot of casinos that do not have these policies. This also means that potential addicts have so many alternatives to gamble, without any casino or another organization is aware of the problem.
The advantage of online casinos is that it is much easier to monitor the behavior of their customers and detect potential addicts. It is also much easier to control their spending whenever needed and to collaborate with banks to ensure that they do not spend it at a different online casino.
To summarize, yes I agree with you that online gambling can be a problem for many potential addicts as it is easily accessible, however, it is also much easier to control the spending of customers online and prevent people from becoming an addict. Therefore, I believe that the rising popularity of online gambling is completely fine, as long as online casinos (and maybe even banks) control the behavior of potential addicts early on.
Dear Antoine,
Your article made me think about an aspect of Covid-19 that I hadn’t thought about. I always find very interesting how all the different kind of industries adapted to this situation and converted into an online platform. This makes me think about another article I read that talked about Oculus Venues; which is how the sports industry adapted to the Covid-19 by offering online streaming. Concerning gambling, I believe that making it online has some advantages as it is easier to control the customer and their behavior. It can limit the number of addicts to gamble. One thing they should make sure of is that no possible hackers could alter data and make them cheat. Lets see if online gambling will continue to be as used when the situation goes back to normal.
Hi there! Very interesting to read about the development of online gambling in the last few months. Logically, people who like to gamble would like to continue to do so from the comfort of their own homes, when casino’s are closed. This trend will likely continue to grow indeed, however I believe once the casinos will re-open, many avid gamblers will go back to their beloved slot-machines. I do see a large market for more casual gamblers who are just willing to bet on a certain amount of corner-kicks in a football match. Therefore, I believe that sports betting will see a larger increase than regular betting. This is definitely worth watching and potentially investing in, as US officials will do anything to gain a buck in tax revenue. Addiction and mental issues have been profited off in the US for decades (opioids for example). Although I believe increasing gambling addiction is a serious concern with the growth of online gambling, I doubt that lawmakers will take this in consideration when legalising businesses that yield some hundred million in state-taxes. My money is on the home team (and the Greenbay Packers).
Thanks again!