The lockdown was an unprecedented time in countless different ways. The effects rippled out to virtually every corner of society, and one industry that was certainly forced to adapt was the gambling sector.
Sports events were massively reduced, casinos were closed, bookmakers shut their doors, and people turned to online betting. While the profits of many industries massively boomed over the course of the lockdown, the same was not really true of the betting industry as a whole in the UK.
Let’s look at some of the profit figures to understand the kind of money gambling companies made during the lockdown.
Effects of lockdown on gambling behaviour
Let’s start by examining exactly how lockdowns affected the population’s gambling habits as a whole. Understanding this is vital to understanding how and why the profits panned out the way they did.
Firstly, naturally, there was a marked decrease in betting activity on the whole. Betting shops, sports venues, racetracks, casinos, and even bingo halls, were all closed. While online betting is becoming increasingly popular through the many online sites, even irrespective of lockdown, there is still far more money than you might expect in brick-and-mortar betting operations. The overall brick-and-mortar betting still brings in, on average, £5-10 billion per year of the roughly £15 billion that the betting industry makes as a whole.
So, as lockdowns were first implemented, one-third of regular sports bettors suddenly stopped betting entirely. Some simply didn’t want to bet online.
But on the whole, the lockdown did lead to changes in behaviour for the majority of gamblers. 17.3% of men and a slightly lower proportion of women adopted a new form of gambling as the lockdown started. Roughly 30% of both men and women also increased the amount of time they spent gambling.
But the majority did not seek new ways to gamble during the same time period. On the whole, then, lockdowns led to a pretty significant reduction in gambling activity. A small minority continued to bet online for events available in other countries. Some went for virtual sports and even things like the lottery.
So, how did this affect income and profits?
Income made by gambling companies during the lockdown
It’s difficult to say with certainty what the companies made during the actual months of lockdown, so let’s take the years as a whole. Lockdowns began in early 2020 and persisted for much of the year, meaning they absolutely affected the entire year’s profit. In 2020, the gambling industry brought in around £5 billion in profit. Let’s compare that with the surrounding years.
In 2019, total gambling profit was close to £8 billion. The decrease in 2020 was as high as 13% from the previous year. The drop might not be as dramatic as you might expect, but with growth projections, it was a huge blow.
Let’s also compare that with the 2021 figures. Remote betting, high street betting, casinos and bingo brought in a collective £6.9 billion, up substantially from the previous year, though still not back to pre-pandemic levels.
Clearly, the lockdown was not good for the betting industry, and the market suffered significantly as a result. Companies certainly continued to make money during the lockdown, but they did not see an increase in profit as many other industries did. This seems to be primarily explained by the vast numbers of regular bettors who simply stopped betting during the lockdown. While many did engage in new activities, for the most part, they simply waited until the sports events were back and the bookies were open again.
The other issue is how thinly spread the remaining customers were. Those who continued betting often did so via unregulated or offshore sites, the use of which has seen a big uptick since the beginning of the pandemic.
Conclusion
It’s clear to see that the peak of lockdowns meant a massively reduced income rate for the entire gambling industry, year-on-year. Sports events had to be more or less suspended, and physical casinos could not open, leaving gambling companies with very few options to keep the money coming in. Online casinos and other games certainly kept the industry afloat during these difficult months, but they could only do so much.
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