In December of 2019, a Wuhan, patient showed symptoms of what health professionals ruled out as the new coronavirus. As a result, COVID-19 has spread across the world and has infected over 200,000 unsuspecting people. With the World Health Organisation declaring it a world pandemic, there are several industries affected by this deadly virus, and the casino niche is no exception. We delve deeper into how this affects the market and more so, how it shifts focus from land-based casino gambling to online casino gambling.
Isolation is the Root of the Cause
With more and more land-based casinos looking to close their doors, and with more people being laid off as a result of the virus, the online casino industry is looking to expand in several geographical markets. This only makes sense for online operators to take advantage of this situation and to look at dominating the gambling industry over the short to medium term, providing that the coronavirus does not show signs of halting anytime soon. Since the latest updates, there’s a definite sign of casino players taking to online platforms.
Land-Based Casinos Have to Act Fast
As we can see an upswing in the amount of online casino players, we can only assume that the extra traffic is a result of a cross-over or transition of land-based players to online casinos. But what this also means is that if brick and mortar casinos wish to remain profitable, they’ll have to re-align their marketing strategies and platforms to accommodate and retain their loyal customer-base. Perhaps major casinos will make the move to online platforms in due time, but for now, all we can do is anticipate the outcome. Inspiration can be taken from www.prodesicasinos.com
Types of Casino Games That Will Gain More Favour
Since casinos are widely known to predominantly have slot machines, we could very well see a rise in online slots gaming at the majority of virtual casinos. Although these sorts of games have the highest house edge compared to games, such as blackjack or roulette for example, we suspect that players will still make the move over to slot gaming.
“In addition to this, we could also see an increase in scratch cards gameplay and, perhaps an even bigger increase in live casino gambling in India.” States casino veteran and expert Sam Evans from Casinocaptain.com
Will This Transition Be Easy
As with most shutdowns, a transition can never really be easy, in our opinion. The knock on effect of land-based casinos closing their doors means that many employees will be laid off with or without salaries. As a result, these employees may seek to work remotely, which once again, is for the benefit of the online casino niche. Other than that, land-based casinos will lose tonnes of revenue during isolation periods, and may have to fork out more cash to move their interests to online platforms, which may or may not happen.
Final thoughts
It is evident that land-based casinos are suffering the affects of the coronavirus pandemic. With employees being laid off and receiving a knock in revenue, we suspect that this will have a long-term effect. As a result, we may see more and more online casinos pop up overnight to fill the gap and needs of land-based players in isolation. The question of whether these players’ industries are affected and whether they too will be without jobs is a totally different ballgame, which forces us to think of long-term actions and spending habits.