Sports betting has taken a big hit so far in 2020. After the outbreak of the Coronavirus it didn’t take long for all major sporting events to be completely shut down. While there are still a few leagues out there carrying on, all of the major leagues have been suspended. This has hit sports betting extremely hard as it has reduced the number of options available to players. With very few sports being played it means that players who enjoy betting on sports have had to begin trying out alternatives.
What happened with sports?
When the Coronavirus first started to make the news, the reaction of sports was initially one of defiance. A number of high profile events and leagues continued to run throughout the first few months of 2020. This attitude soon shifted as the gravity of the situation became apparent to everyone. All of the major sports in the world started to close down play as February turned into March. This meant that football, cricket, rugby, boxing and everything in between was suddenly completely stopped.
There have been a few anomalies, for example the Belarus football league has continued to play throughout the pandemic, but on the whole, and certainly for major markets, sports has had a blanket cancellation. So, what has this meant for the sports betting world?
Online sportsbooks suffering
One major impact has been on online sportsbooks. Because over 90% of the sporting events that were previously available have suddenly vanished, it means that there has been almost no markets available to offer to customers. This has caused a number of contingency plans to be rolled out.
One of these has been to push up lesser known sports leagues onto the front page of sites. This includes the previously mentioned Belarus football league and other sports around the world that are still taking place. This obviously doesn’t cover the wide range of choices that players previously had for a number of reasons.
The first, and most obvious reason, is that there just isn’t as much sport taking place. It means it’s just not there for sportsbooks to be able to offer it. The second reason is a little less obvious. Because a lot of the leagues are in areas that aren’t as well covered as the main leagues, it means the technology to track the different metrics aren’t quite as good. This in turn means that the number of markets that are available are much lower compared to the major sports that are usually offered.
Will sports ever restart?
While there of course no guarantees, it’s safe to say that sport should restart at some point this year. It may well be in a behind closed doors scenario, but sports should be back on the agenda in 2020 at some point. In fact, the Bundesliga has recently announced that it intends to be back up and running during May. This would be fantastic news for sports betting companies and customers as it will instantly offer access to a wide range of markets that have been missing since the widespread suspension of sport started to take place.
If the Bundesliga do manage to get back up and running during May then it could lead other sports and leagues to follow suit. With games taking place behind closed doors and live TV access being the most likely method that will be used, it could see a whole host of lockdown sports being available to consumers.
This influx of live, televised sport should bring back sports betting customers in droves. While it obviously won’t make up for the large loss of revenue that has already taken place, it will be a welcome boost to sports betting companies that are struggling during this time. Despite the lack of sports that are available, there have been other alternatives that have been rolled out by a number of different companies.
Virtual sports
The concept of virtual sports is a strange one. It’s essentially a simulation that carries out sporting events based on statistics and random number generators. It’s very much similar to real life, in that while there are expectations of what should happen, there are often outliers that create surprise situations.
What online sportsbooks have taken to doing is offering their customers the ability to place wagers on a range of different virtual sporting events. The most common of these have been virtual horse races, which had been taking place for quite a while before the Coronavirus situation took hold. The use of virtual sports means that customers who like to place wagers on sporting events have still been able to do so, even with the almost complete absence of sport. While it doesn’t quite have the same level of appeal as a regular event, it still does just enough to tide people over during this difficult time.
E-Sports
E-sports are the other solution that has popped up for sportsbooks. Because e-sports relies on internet connections and not face to face interaction, it has been able to continue on the whole. This means that any sportsbooks that offered markets on e-sports events have been able to continue offering this service during the lockdown. It’s given the market a fresh appeal and brought in a number of new customers who had never really considered it in the past. Whether it will keep the new customers once sports returns remains to be seen, but it has still seen a positive reaction in the circumstances.
This is undoubtedly a difficult time for sports in general, with a number of teams and leagues struggling without the financial injection from fans and still having to pay wages to their players. Sports betting has also struggled as well. With most countries believing that they are past the peak of the virus, we could see sports resuming very soon. This is certainly what most teams and leagues want and it’s definitely what the sportsbooks want. What is for certain though, is that none of the leagues will resume again until they are sure that it is safe to do so.
