UK Online Casinos Take Unexpected Turn, Users Block Own Accounts

• COVID-19 has shut down land-based casinos in the United Kingdom.
• Over half of a million online casino users have banned themselves from using online casinos.

UNITED KINGDOM — As the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, non-essential businesses around the world have closed their doors in order to help prevent the virus from spreading even more.

In the United Kingdom, all casinos were ordered to close down their operations to help prevent spreading the coronavirus as well. This decision was eye-opening to online casinos as they were prepared to thrive during this quarantine period.

However, online gamblers have seemed to take matters in their own hands in order to prevent themselves from overspending in a frightening economic period. Over half a million of them have already blocked themselves from using online casinos and more are expected.

Casino Closures

As land-based casinos in the United Kingdom were ordered to close, online casinos were looking at this as an opportunity to thrive as casino goers were set to self-quarantine in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. This action is similar to that of the United States as well.

Something unexpected happened, however. There are about 570,000 legal online casino users in the UK that have banned themselves from using online casino platforms during the quarantine period.

Users have done this to stop themselves from using money that they cannot afford to lose as there are no paychecks coming in since workplaces are closing. This has been the most popular option for online casino users as they realize the tough times that are ahead.

The number of people that have banned themselves is eye-opening as the UK Gambling Commission has shared that over 340,000 people could be classified as gambling addicts throughout the country.