The world has been in involuntary quarantine for more than a month and whilst the closure of borders and the restriction of air and sea transport have had a positive impact on the environment, it has demonstrated worrying consequences for most industries and businesses.
As people are stuck at home, they have turned to the Internet to find ways to keep themselves entertained, exploring social media, and creating content on how to develop and entertain themselves during the lockdown. All streaming services have appreciated this zeal for entertainment and all the social networks, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, have been filled with live broadcasts, master classes, and various challenges for users who are bored in isolation.
Along with this, the popularity of streaming services and home delivery has increased. 1ClickGames have studied the market and identified which industries are now on top during the lockdown.
The effects of the worldwide lockdown on the iGaming industry
Streaming Services
Netflix, an American media-services provider, is experiencing a real boost in users because their movie and television media library is ideal for people in isolation, sitting face to face with their computers and televisions. Netflix representatives declared that in the first three months of 2020, 16 million people created new accounts, of which 7 million users are from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. This is almost twice as many new registrations compared to the last months of 2019. In March 2020, the company announced that, given the influx of new users from Europe, they would be forced to lower the quality of videos in Europe to reduce the burden on Internet providers. Not surprisingly, Netflix's revenue has increased to $ 5.76 billion, up 27% compared to the same period last year, and the company's shares have risen in price by 30%.
Sports betting switched to virtual sport
Speaking of online gambling, sports sweepstakes have taken the biggest hit in the iGaming industry. Due to the suspension of UEFA, FIFA and other top-level football competitions - the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, and Italian Serie A and cancellations of other major sporting events like the Tokyo Olympic Games, tennis tournaments, NBA, NFL competitions - the sportsbooks have been at a major disadvantage and could not offer anything to their players. Following this large-scale lockdown, it is believed that sports betting companies have lost, in general, revenue of between 30 to 60%.
However, virtual sports have now come to the rescue, brightening up the whole situation a little. Some bookmakers have quickly retrained in casinos, and some simply added virtual sports. The popularity of virtual sports is growing and with it, the income of sportsbooks.
Online casinos
There has also been an increase in online casino games such as slots. The lockdown has unquestionably had a huge impact on land-based casinos. However, many companies have managed to stay afloat as they have an online presence and have been attracting visitors to their online environment.
Those companies with just an online casino have noted a growth in traffic and income, as well as the duration of gaming sessions, and the average deposit amount has increased quite significantly.
All this is due to the direct stay at home, as well as the fact that many online casinos have begun to use cross-selling and offer more inexpensive promotions that positively affected players. It is important to remember that in these difficult times, casinos have increased the number of informative mailings, reminding their players to play responsibly, and highlighting the use of additional tools to protect players from unnecessary expenses or addiction. Here is some of the data that 1ClickGames has collected from its casino projects, showing an increase in player activity and deposit amounts over the past few months compared to previous year data.
Poker has experienced a real boom since the quarantine started in Europe. The Italians became the leaders in traffic growth, with traffic reaching the 2,000 players mark. The last time these figures were seen was back in 2017.
This is partly due to the cancellation of live poker tournaments, so everything turned online. For many operators, online poker has become a potential lifesaver. Also, many new players have come to poker from online betting.
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