Legal Online Casinos Profit In Light Of The COVID-19 Crisis
- The Coronavirus is spreading globally and hurting the casino gambling business due to quarantines.
- Online casinos would help with lost profits if these businesses were to venture into internet gaming.
BOSTON – The Coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, making a case for legal online casinos. The gaming industry has been affected by the virus as countries have shut down operations and states in the US have decided to take extreme precautionary measures to remain open.
If online casinos were legally accessible by states and countries that do not offer them, this would be a time where they’d become an extremely profitable business.
International Casinos Take A Hit
The gambling capital of the world, Macau in China, closed all 41 of their casinos in February for a fifteen-day period to prevent further spreading of COVID-19.
“Of course this was a difficult decision, but we must do it for the health of Macau’s residents,” said Ho Iat Seng, the chief executive of the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
Four-fifths of the revenue for the government in Macau comes from the gambling market so having to shut down for 15 days was a major hit for the city. Although businesses have reopened, revenue is down by 88% as patrons are not going to the casinos which makes internet gambling that much more attractive.
Online casinos are illegal in China but if they weren’t, they would still be profiting despite the COVID-19 outbreak. Internet gambling has seen a 90% increase in business since the quarantines began, which is an extreme spike for internet casino operators.
“Asia is still very much the Wild West, it’s very unregulated, but [the land-based operators] are not getting any business. The online operators and Philippines licensees are picking up most of these players,” said Jason Ader, who was a top-ranked gaming analyst at Bear Stearns for more than a decade. “I think it’s a wake-up call, not just in Asia but in the U.S. The European companies are in leading positions.”
US Casino Market Affected
Casinos in Southern California and other areas of the US are adding hand sanitizer stations within their facilities as well as making sure employees are well informed of the guidelines for prevention.
“We are obviously a public space, we have a lot of people coming in every day,” said Jason Cozart, assistant general manager for the Soboba Casino Resort. “We want to make sure that our employees are safe and our guests are safe at all times.”
The Encore Boston Harbor Casino in Everett, Massachusetts, has decided to start taking the temperature of every customer that walks through their doors to prevent the spread of the illness. Anyone with a temperature of 100 or higher will be referred to medical professionals. They too have installed hand sanitizing stations.
“With their permission, we are discretely taking their temperature with a non-contact, digital thermometer,” said Encore. “Guests with a temperature of 100 degrees or higher will be asked to leave our property and encouraged to seek medical attention for further screening or treatment.
“We are sanitizing our slot machines, kiosks, ATMs, and all high touch points throughout the gaming floor on an hourly basis. All of our gaming supplies (eg, chips, dice, cards) are cleaned, refreshed or discarded every 4 hours.”
Lost Profits
All of these preventative measures and the scare, in general, will surely see a decline in the casino business for the US. It’s similar to non-smoking casinos in Pennsylvania and how it affected their overall profits. Smokers would rather gamble on the internet and be able to smoke than go to an establishment that prohibits it.
Online casinos would be the best way for these gaming operators to make money in times like this. Once lawmakers see tax revenues steadily decrease due to low in-person casino turnout, they may begin to consider the idea of legal online casino gaming instead.