The International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction has published “Gambling Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among European Regular Sports Bettors: An Empirical Study Using Behavioral Tracking Data.” According to the study, there was no connection between internet casinos and sports bettors.
Researchers Mark D. Griffiths of the International Gaming Research Unit at the University of Nottingham, Doris Malischnig of the Office of Addiction and Drug Policy of Vienna, and Michael Auer of the German data company Neccton concluded that regular online sports bettors in Europe are not switching to other types of internet wagering.
According to the report, “at least for this specific online gambling provider, there was no conversion of money spent from sports betting to online casino games.” A significant European online gaming company with customers in Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Norway submitted data to the researchers. The iGaming firm was not named in the study.
The customer accounts of 5,396 bettors who made at least one online sports wager in five of the ten weeks between January 1 and March 7, 2020, were examined as part of the COVID-19 sports betting review. Through April 30, the researchers analyzed their online casino play before and after sports were suspended and discovered that they didn’t increase their wagers on interactive table games and online slots. They made smaller bets.
This indicates that users made fewer bets on both sports (because most games were postponed by March 7) and online casino games, according to the report. The research’s conclusions “indicate that there was a significant decrease in the amount of money wagered by sports bettors during the COVID-19 pandemic (compared with before it) and that sports bettors did not switch to playing more online casino games and that there was also a significant decrease in playing online casino games among sports bettors.”
Football (soccer) and the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics are only two athletic events that have been postponed that would likely be of interest to sports bettors in the four countries being watched. Also delayed was Wimbledon.
In the interim, still-going nontraditional events, like table tennis and soccer in Belarus, have attracted sports betting providers. Virtual sports have become popular, and NASCAR had its drivers participate in an online racing series using iRacing.
However, William Hill, one of the biggest bookmakers in the world, claims that the pandemic has negatively impacted its US operations. William Hill US revealed that its sales fell almost 90% in the six weeks from March 11 to April 28.
The biggest operator in Nevada is William Hill, also active in eight other states.
Regulated US bookmakers are not allowed to accept wagers on novelty events, such as reality TV competitions, unlike in the UK and other parts of Europe. They are also prohibited from making predictions about political outcomes.