November 5, 2020
With the UK government releasing over the weekend that the country will be going back into national lockdown on Thursday meaning that all non-essential shops including pubs, gyms and workplaces that can work from home will be forced to close to ensure that the spread of the virus is contained as much as possible before Christmas. With gambling being at the forefront of this, we investigate to see how this is going to affect the industry as a whole.
Of course, the worst affected in the gambling industry is that of land-based betting shops and casinos which again will be forced to close as they were in the first lockdown back in March. Many operators in the UK have experienced huge losses during this time due to the closure of their shops and/or casinos during this period of uncertainty. With the government highlighting them as one of the hotspots for coronavirus infection rates, again they will be one of the last to reopen when we are through Lockdown 2 – a sad time for many.
One area of the industry did have some half good news during the first lockdown which was that many more consumers were therefore found on online casinos due to the lockdown – you can see them here. This was mainly due to the fact that many struggled to find entertainment for themselves during the height of the lockdown as many of their usual hobbies were limited due to social distancing being unable to be put in place. This ensured that online services such as online casinos were a beneficiary of this with a trend of new sign ups looking to happen again during Lockdown 2.0.
Similar to the gambling industry, other online services have also benefitted from the lockdown such as online streaming services like Netflix. This again is due to the fact hobbies haven’t been able to happen because of social distancing and many being locked indoors watching tv series and movies. Moreover, online e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon have seen trends of more and more ordering online because of the ease of access.
Although the coronavirus has affected virtually every industry, the gambling industry has been one of the most affected in both positive and negative way and will be looking for avenues to reimburse and revitalise the industry to ensure that it will be able to get back on top once the lockdown is re-released in December hopefully.
