The Covid19 pandemic has undoubtedly been one of the most disruptive and damaging events that the world has experienced within the last few decades. The restrictions put in place by governments have meant that life as we knew it changed completely and might never return to what we knew as ‘normal.’
During the pandemic, things like lockdown put enormous strain on many businesses and industries. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide lost their jobs or businesses and fell on hard financial times. While some industries had taken a hard knock, others were flourishing because of changes in people’s activities and spending habits. One of these industries is the gambling industry.
Now that things are starting to relax regarding restrictions on people and their activities, how will the Covid19 aftermath affect Bitcoin (BTC) casinos and other online casinos going forward? Here we will look at how the online gambling industry profited from the pandemic and what the future holds for them.
Covid19 brought with it very harsh restrictions on the global population. For health and safety reasons, governments decided that countries needed to close borders, restrict movement, and even keep people at home for several weeks or months at a time. This restriction on movement, lack of freedom, and the boredom that ensued meant that people were looking for new ways to keep themselves entertained and for new ways to spend money.
In the UK in 2020, a survey showed that people were spending 87% more time online, either reading, posting, or playing. With this, it was shown that the search for online casinos and BTC casinos during Covid19 was 3 times higher than it was before lockdown. People who weren’t regular gamblers were now giving it a try as it provided an escape and a way to keep busy and pass the time. In Australia, another survey conducted showed that 1 in 3 adult people during lockdown signed up to a new online casino, and 32% of the Australian population said they gambled online at least 4 times per week during this period.
Regular online gamblers were now gambling even more because of their free time, and those that gambled at land-based casinos were now trying their luck at online casinos. The regular customers coupled with new customers signing up meant that BTC casinos were coining it.
Covid19 restrictions have in recent months begun to relax very slightly, with governments allowing people to resume certain normal activities and allowing businesses to reopen their doors to customers. People who couldn’t gamble at land-based casinos took to gambling online but are slowly starting to return to their favorite casino hot spots as it allows for some semblance of normality. Of course, not as many people can attend a venue at once, which means that getting back to normal or making big profits for these land-based casinos will take some time, and in the meantime, people will continue to gamble online.
During the lockdown and still, today, major sports and sporting events were stopped. This was devastating to the world of sports betting and frustrating for the betting customers. What began to happen was that sportsbook casinos started to offer betting on obscure sports because these sports were allowed to be played during the restrictions. They also encouraged their clients to bet on virtual sports. Because some gamblers were not interested in spending on sports they did not know or weren’t real, they started to lean towards table games and online slots, bringing more traffic to the online sites. This traffic will most likely fall once sports and sporting events have returned to normal and the sports fans can bet on their favorite games. However, it has also given people a taste of betting differently and might see them coming back to play slots and table games.
So now that there are different streams of new customers signing up and playing at BTC online casinos, one of the main factors to think about is how they will retain these new players. How BTC casinos adapt after Covid19 restrictions relax will be exceptionally important to maintaining these new customers. BTC casinos will need to come up with even more frequent and great Bitcoin casino bonuses, loyalty programs, and new game releases. Keeping people interested is key as some of the newcomers were not gamblers before Covid19 and might not want to gamble once they receive more freedom from restrictions. It’s all dependent on how creative and adaptive BTC online casinos can become.
We can most certainly conclude that Covid19 positively affected BTC online casinos. Loads of new traffic and increased gameplay by regular gamblers meant bigger profits for the industry.
We can also conclude that while some things might change back to ‘normal’ and once again change people’s habits, there is no need for online casinos to fret about not making money in the future. Whether the circumstances are good or bad, the online casino industry has shown to be extremely resilient. In 2020, the peak of lockdown, the estimated global revenue from online gambling was $66.67 billion, which is estimated to rise to $100 billion in 2026.
While Covid19 has changed many things about the world and life will never quite be the same, one thing will remain: people love to gamble. BTC casinos have kept adapting and changing to cater to rising needs and demands, and this has ultimately led to profit and growth within the industry. The future for online gambling and BTC casinos looks bright and has no intention of slowing down.
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