Is COVID-19 causing online gamblers to gamble more?

If you are like the rest of us, you have probably had your fill of COVID-19 news. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding the fact that it is pretty much the only story these days. So much so that we now have to discuss what might have previously been considered absurd: is COVID-19 causing online gamblers to gamble more?

This appears to be a concern among some members of the UK Parliament. A number of MPs have recently called on the online gambling industry to impose temporary limits on daily gambling amounts out of fear that a lack of sports betting is driving gamblers to gamble more money on more risky games.

Those more risky games include table games, video slots, and computer-simulated sports. There is also concern that operators are using the nearly global shutdown of sports betting as a means of enticing new customers, some of which will possibly go on to develop gambling problems. But this is just another overreaction piled on top of a series of previous overreactions!

More aggressive government action

Before getting into detail over the recent calls by MPs, we should point out that the UK has seen more aggressive government action to rein in online gambling operators. In 2019, new rules governing how operators verify player age and identity went into effect. So far in 2020, authorities have already fined a number of operators for not taking enough action to prevent underage gambling and money laundering.

Betway is one of the most prominent operations targeted by the UK Gambling Commission. They were recently levied a record £11.6 million fine over their business practices. They have, along with Mansion Bet, now started promoting virtual sporting events and opportunities to gamble on them.

This concerns MPs. Why? Because they believe that such betting will only fuel gambling problems. It's unclear why betting on virtual sports is more addictive than betting on real, live sports, but that is the claim, nonetheless.

A number of MPs signed a letter sent to industry operatives in recent days urging them to hold back while the world continues to battle the coronavirus. They are asking operators to "act responsibly and do what they can to protect society and people's finances, at this dreadful time."

Betting on obscure things

At the heart of the MPs argument is their belief that people who would normally bet on sporting events are now being "encouraged" to either play casino games or bet on more obscure things instead. MPs worry that this means betting on things that people know nothing about, thereby increasing their chances of losing. But is this a legitimate concern?

In the UK, you can literally bet on just about anything. You can place your bets on celebrity deaths, who the next pope will be, who will win the next election, and so forth. How many millions are spent betting on the sex and name of the next royal or celebrity baby every time a pregnancy is announced?

UK bookmakers will take bets on just about anything. So why are virtual sports or other 'obscure' bets suddenly now a problem? As it turns out, the problem is not betting itself. What really concerns MPs is that people will turn to online gambling because they are cooped up at home with nothing to do.

Have to wonder what's next; limiting the sale of alcohol because people are drinking too much due to COVID-19?

How operators can help

The real solution to this perceived problem is to allow life to return to normal. But since that is not likely to happen for the foreseeable future, MPs are asking online operators to do what they can to help prevent problem gambling. Their first suggestion of limiting daily bets to £50 is totally unreasonable.

MPs are also asking operators to do what they can to prevent people from opening multiple accounts to get around daily betting limits. They even want operators to find ways to intervene more quickly when customers start exhibiting signs of problem gambling. These latter two considerations are easier requested than implemented.

Operators must already do their best to verify the identities and ages of new customers. A customer willing to open multiple accounts despite operator objections will have to find a way to get around ID verification. Anyone capable of doing that will probably not be affected by operator attempts to thwart them. As for intervention, it will do little else than encourage problem gamblers to leave one casino and move to another.

When COVID-19 eventually passes

It is not beyond reasonable to ask online gambling operators to put daily betting caps in place. Let us assume they voluntarily do so. Where do we go from there? Eventually COVID-19 will pass. Land-based casinos will reopen, and sports betting will resume.

Will MPs then call on operators to eliminate their daily limits? It is unlikely. If anything, they are likely to call on operators to keep the daily limits in place because they "proved so valuable" during the COVID-19 crisis. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the MPs will even go to the Gambling Commission and implore them to make daily gambling limits an official part of the law.

Therein lies the danger of trying to change a person's behaviour by forcing some other entity to change its behaviour to accommodate the person with the problem. Asking gambling operators to prevent online gambling is like asking carmakers to prevent dangerous driving. It is neither practical nor feasible.

The only way to make a car that cannot be driven dangerously is to eliminate the driver from the equation. The car industry is working on that, but driverless cars are still decades away. For now, any time a driver gets behind the wheel of a car, he or she has the opportunity to be dangerous. No amount of safety features will change that. No amount of safety features will prevent dangerous drivers from causing accidents.

Likewise, the online gambling industry can only do so much to encourage people to get help for gambling problems. There is nothing they can do to prevent those problems from developing. Even a £50 daily betting limit will not prevent a problem gambler from gambling. It also will not prevent that person's problem from getting worse.

Reducing the volume

The thinking here is that operators should do what they can to prevent online gamblers from gambling more as a result of being cooped up at home with nothing to do. That much is reasonable. If you restrict how much a gambler can bet on any given day, you naturally restrict how much time you can spend gambling on that day. However a gambler can go and sign up with another gambling site, and then another, and then another, having multiple sites to gamble at. How is the UK government going to control that without going full Orwell?

We have explained in previous posts just how much money gambling adds to the global economy. If you follow our posts, you know that global gambling losses over the last eight weeks have likely eclipsed £100 million at this point. That number accounts for land-based casinos and sports betting. By the time this is all over, we are likely to be talking about billions.

Take that much money out of the economy and you have serious issues. Cripple the gambling industry to the point of no return and you suddenly put millions of people out of work. Thus, we have to be just as concerned about the economic damage of COVID-19 as we are about problem gamblers.

Out of an abundance of caution

Governments the world over are asking people to stay at home "out of an abundance of caution." Workplaces are shutting down for that same reason. Hospitality, tourism, and gambling have all but gone dark. Now what? Perhaps it's time for government leaders to exercise that same abundance of caution in relation to the economic impact of their decisions.

Out of an abundance of caution, maybe they shouldn't be telling people to plan on staying in their houses for the next 60 days. Perhaps they shouldn't be giving the impression that the world will be in lock down through the summer. Maybe it's time to be a bit more pragmatic and a bit less fearful. Otherwise, the number of lives destroyed by the panic will far exceed those taken by COVID-19.

MPs want gambling operators in the UK to impose a £50 daily limit on gambling. They also want operators to do more to prevent duplicate accounts and intervene when gamblers show signs of problem gambling. Let us hope things don't go any further with regards to MP's intervening in people's lives and how they want to spend their hard-earned cash. Let's hope that once this is all over our personal freedoms are still somewhat in tact.