Chain Reaction of Negative Events
Undoubtedly, the outbreak of Covid-19 virus became a worldwide pandemic and has deeply scarred the US casino industry. Employees from various sectors of the industry whether tribal, commercial and sportsbook all the way to the gaming equipment manufacturers as well as restaurants, hospitality and small businesses were heavily impacted. This even includes online casinos such as Bandar Togel Hongkong.
Several casino gaming companies doing operations in the US are doing their best to help American workers in these times of difficulties. Despite the near economic standstill brought by mandatory shutdowns, numerous gaming companies are making the effort to pay its employees and offer health insurance coverage. The American Gaming Association has announced that it will be supporting the swift government actions in protecting the safety and health of communities.
But also requires the same importance and action is how to mitigate the obvious impact of the shutdown creates which puts closure on several casinos both offline and online and laid off hundreds to even thousands of casino employees.
What happens after the Unexpected Closures of Casinos?
Well, in just a matter of days, majority of the casino in the countries has closed its doors and in fact, all of the 465 commercial casinos in the country plus 508 out of the 524 tribal casinos in the country have closed already. These 973 casinos in total are representing 98 percent of all the gaming properties in US.
And as of the time of this writing, the impact of casino closure brought the following:
- Almost 650,000 casino gaming as well as resort employees were laid off
- Casino closures are risking over 74 billion dollars in total annual wage for workers as well as their families
The Impact to its Local Community
The closure of casinos has reverberated as well across its surrounding local communities. Below is a quick outline of how it impacted them.
- Casino gaming is contributing to over 41 billion dollars in yearly tax revenue and tribal revenue sharing nationwide. This helps in funding essentials for the community from fire responders, vital public services and local hospitals
- Half of the jobs are supported by the industry’s non-gaming business like restaurants and other businesses – all of which were drastically affected by the closure of the casinos
- Casino gaming is critical to various small businesses in the local area. Believe it or not, it is capable of generating 52 billion dollars per year in small business revenue which includes retail, wholesale firms, manufacturing and construction