COVID-19 Pandemic Continues To Threaten Casino Activity In UK
As the COVID-19 pandemic continue to impact the health and livelihood of the public, many people are willing to go to the extreme to make the ends meet. Nowadays, gambling can provide the instant wealth that people would need to survive, especially in these trying times. One could imagine that more people are getting drawn into casinos to try their luck, hoping that their luck star would lead them to the jackpot prize.
Contrary to this belief, in the United Kingdom, there has actually been a significant drop in casino activity. In fact, in August, the month when the UK government started to lift quarantine restrictions to boost the struggling economy of the country, casino revenues slowed down.
Per the latest numbers posted by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) earlier this week, there has been a notable drop in active players in known casinos across the nation in the month of August. In July, wherein the casino businesses were already affected by the pandemic, the numbers back then were relatively better compared to August.
The decrease in casino activity could be attributed to a lot of things. First of all, people once again had more options to spend their money on when lockdown restrictions loosened up in August. While some people still got their habit of going to the casinos to unwind, most of them would choose something that has less risk of losing their savings. After all, in the current state of the economy, it is wise to secure the savings for an emergency situation.
Another factor that led to the drop in casino and gambling activities in August is the seasonal break in the major sports events in the country. For one, the break in English Premier League football games would account to the decrease in bets from the usual sports betting patrons. This caused almost 10% decline in betting activity, while the total number of actual event wagers decreased by 12% in the same month. With this, one can expect that the figures for betting revenue would be very bad. From July, the number dropped by a staggering 21%.
Online Casinos Still Thrive, But Continues To Suffer
Even in online casinos like gclub, gambling activity continues to drop, even if people could easily play using their mobile phones at home. For an instance, in online slots, the number of active players dropped by 2% from July to August. The number of total slots also dropped by 1% and the number of online slot sessions going over an hour dropped by 7%.
Fortunately, the online slot revenues saw an uptick by around 0.7%. Other online casino games also suffered a decrease in active players, with the amount of drop running around 5%, while the number of non-slot games and bets reported a 10% drop in August. Online poker numbers are also down by 15%, while the poker bets and revenues went further down by 7% and 8%, respectively, in the same month.
It was first imagine that the easing up of lockdown measures in August would result to an improvement in gambling business. To recall, establishments, including casinos, were closed from March to July as the first wave of coronavirus infection ravaged United Kingdom.
