4 things we've learned about gambling in the COVID-19 era

As much as this writer did not want to put together yet another piece related to COVID-19, there isn't much else to write about these days. COVID-19 dominates every aspect of the news from top to bottom. It even dominates gambling news these days.

As long as we are stuck in this news cycle, we might just as well make the best of it. To that end, you can learn a lot about the gambling industry if you're willing to dig beyond the headlines and read the details found buried deep in many of the stories coming over the news wires.

This post covers four things we have learned about the gambling industry, and gambling in general, as a result of COVID-19's disruption of just about everything we have long considered normal. The question is whether or not the lessons learned will have any sort of long-lasting impact moving forward. Hope that they will but expect that they will not.

1. People will bet on anything

It was hard to rank these four lessons in terms of their importance. Eventually though, the reality that people will bet on anything found its way to the top of the list. Indeed, we have learned that people will bet on things like weather forecasts and what numbers will be drawn in lotteries. It has come to that.

UK bookmakers have a long history of offering bets on everything from elections to the sex of the next royal baby. Bookmakers elsewhere have been a bit more reserved. Not anymore, though. With professional sports all but coming to a grinding halt across the globe, bookmakers are having to find other ways to entice gamblers to place their wagers.

Bookmakers hungry for any bets they can get their hands on are now giving customers an opportunity to bet on multiple facets of the weather. For example, gamblers were given the opportunity in recent days to bet on the temperature in Houston, Texas. They were given an over-under line as well as the opportunity to pick the temperature outright.

They will never stop gambling

The fact that people will bet on just about anything is all the proof one needs to understand that no one will ever stop gambling from occurring. No government department or police agency will prevent people from placing bets. Whether it is slot games or betting on whether or not skies will be blue tomorrow, human beings have an innate desire to gamble. And gamble they will.

Regulators have an opportunity to come to terms with this reality in the wake of the COVID-19 scare. They should take this lesson to heart as they seek to further regulate gambling in a foolish attempt to get people to stop doing it. Will they learn? Not likely.

2. The industry isn't above begging

The second lesson to learn is that the gambling industry isn't above begging for government handouts when times get tough. This once proud industry has been brought to its knees by a virus that we still know very little about. Rather than figuring a way out of the mess once this all blows over, operators of all sizes are now asking for government handouts.

We already know from past news reports that gambling operators in Macau are relying on local and regional governments to pump billions of dollars in funding into their businesses. Without such funding, some of the operators would likely be forced to close their doors forever.

The UK, long considered a gaming powerhouse, is facing similar problems of its own. Gambling operators have taken such a huge hit that the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) is pushing government leaders to extend a financial lifeline to sports book operations that have all but gone dark in recent weeks.

The BGC further warns that some UK casinos have seen business drop off by nearly 90%. Betting shops are looking at losses somewhere in the 60% range. Unfortunately, travel restrictions are only making things worse. People who don't travel also do not visit casinos.

This leads the industry to believe they have no other choice but to stand before government leaders with their hands out. U.S. leaders have already said they will offer assistance to both tourism and gambling businesses. So have leaders in Denmark, France, Spain, and other countries. Operators in the UK want the same kind of help.

3. Gambling is a big financial engine

Lesson number three involves something a lot of people do not want to hear: gambling is a big financial engine that helps drive global economics. Gambling is seen as a vice in many parts of the world, and it is no secret that some government leaders would like to see it eliminated completely. But take away the gambling industry and you remove billions of dollars from the economy.

Flutter Entertainment, a European bookmaking holding company, recently revised its 2020 expectations by advising shareholders its profits could fall by more than $100 million as a direct result of the COVID-19 outbreak. They estimate profits will still be in the range of $134 million, so at least that much is good. Still, they are cutting their expectations nearly in half.

Flutter Entertainment is but one operation expecting losses in excess of $100 million. Again, Flutter is but one player in a much larger sea of gambling operators. Put them all together and you are looking at losses in the billions. That is a lot of money taken out of the economy. It is a lot of money not going to workers and those tertiary industries that support gambling.

All of this is to say that smart lawmakers will take a step back and carefully examine the economic damage being caused by a global gambling industry that has been brought to its knees. The losses are real. When all this blows over - and it will - lawmakers should work their hardest to help the gambling industry recover. Then they should look for ways to further strengthen the industry moving forward.

4. Bitcoin not as robust as previously thought

The fourth and final lesson here is the reality that Bitcoin is not as robust as previously thought. Just a few weeks ago, it was flirting with the $10,000 mark. Things were looking up in anticipation of this year's halving. Then financial markets began plummeting. Guess what happened?

Cryptocurrencies typically run counter to the stock markets. When stocks fall, cryptos tend to rise. Not this time. Bitcoin has plummeted from nearly $10,000 to $5000. It was even flirting with sub-$5000 prices for a time. Things seem to have stabilized, but who knows where Bitcoin will go if financial markets continue to be bearish?

The thing about cryptocurrency cannot stand on its own without being accepted as legal tender and a complete drop-in replacement for fiat. Until that happens, cryptocurrency is ultimately dependent on the fiat economy.

How does this relate to gambling? By virtue of the fact that cryptocurrency and blockchain are being touted as the future of gambling operations worldwide. They may very well be just that, but neither cryptocurrency nor blockchain is helping prevent big losses among gambling operators.

Bitcoin's drastic fall over the last couple of weeks has taken wealth out of the hands of people who would have otherwise spent more to pursue their online gambling hobby. It has reduced the value of cryptocurrency exchanges, payment processors, and Bitcoin gambling operations that have relied heavily on crypto deposits.

It will eventually pass

In closing, the point of this post was not to cast a further pall over the already overwhelming COVID-19 news. Rather, it was simply to point out the fact that the crisis has revealed a few things about the gambling industry that we do not tend to think about. It has offered lessons through which we can learn plenty.

All of this will eventually pass in time. In China, life is already returning to normal. People are going back to work, and business is resuming. We will start seeing similar conditions in other parts of the world.

As the world recovers, so will the gambling industry. Sports betting will eventually resume as athletes get back to competition. Land-based casinos will open their doors, turn on their slot machines, and staff their gaming tables. Online gambling will grow stronger thanks to the many new gamblers introduced to it as a result of the COVID-19 scare.

All of this is just temporary. Life will go on. Hopefully, the lessons learned from all of this will lead to better decisions in the future, such as shutting down the borders immediately to stop the spreading of the next virus.