The year 2020 has been tough so far in many industries. However, many industries continued to thrive like the online gaming and gambling sector. Obviously, sports betting was negatively impacted by the on-going pandemic because many major sports events worldwide had to be postponed or canceled. However, things seem to be changing based on the recent data released by the UK Gambling Commission or the UKGC.
Sports betting has always been a popular way to gamble in the European region. It’s understandable as many Europeans are big fans of sports like football and horse racing. Horse race betting has been part of the rich culture and history of many European countries like Ireland. It’s one of the most wagered on sports events in Europe.
Along with sports events like the EPL, many horse racing events also had to be canceled since March. However, derbies or horse races in the UK and even in the US are now set to return. With this, a calculator for horse betting fans will surely be useful as they prepare to bet on this sport once again.
Since many major sports events like horse races, football, tennis, and many other more are coming back, how is the sports betting industry looking? Well, for sure this sector of the gambling industry took a bit of a hit when sports events had to be canceled. Sportsbooks just didn’t have many odds to offer to their customers.
Because of this, sports betting activities went down. People either turned real-event or entertainment betting. Some also switched to casino gaming temporarily as online casino operators did report a spike in their traffic in March. They also noted that many people who signed up for online casino accounts are the ones who are fond of sports betting.
That just really proves that people who enjoy sports betting needed to find something else to do as their favorite sports events took a break. However, a recent report from the UKGC actually shows improvement for the local betting industry.
The study made by the UKGC has 2,000 participants who are adults. The study covers the months of April and May, and the data they got is from the largest operators of the gambling industry. The study found that since the cancelation of sports events, the total of active bettors dropped by 55 percent in April.
When May came in, this was when they noticed an increase in the number of active players. This is mainly because sports events were already starting to come back. In May, the German Bundesliga went back in action. The UKGC then found that the number of active players during this time rose by 13 percent.
The month of May was also when the gross gambling yield or GGY in the UK grew by 64 percent. However, it didn’t appear all good news for all the gambling sectors in the country. The study found that online casino gaming and online poker activities dropped in April.
The number of active players for online casino gaming dropped by 48 percent. Meanwhile, poker activities online also dropped to 11 percent. The GGY for casino gaming dropped by 12 percent, while poker GGY dropped by 8 percent.
Another important detail noted in the report is that only 0.4 percent of the participants in this study said that they only started gambling since April. On average, they also found that there was a 17 percent increase in the average spending habits of these people when it comes to their gambling activities. Only 2.1 percent of these people have said that they stopped gambling after this period.
There has also been a rise in eSports betting in the last few months. This also mainly started when sports events were on a break or were canceled. Sportsbooks had to find more odds to offer to their customers and so they also turned to eSports for this.
The eSports sector has been slowly growing in the last few years, however, there has been over 2000 percent of the growth in terms of viewership since the lockdowns have started. This could be a good step towards getting more attention for this sector, but it’s hard to tell at the moment whether this growth will be sustained in the next few months, especially now that traditional sports betting is starting to recover.
The same goes for other online gambling activities. Online casino gaming may have experienced a spike in the last few months, but know that this industry has been growing rapidly even before the pandemic. This shows that even if such activities went down in April and May, this sector is still set to grow in the next few years.
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