No one's talking about... online gambling during lockdown
There has undoubtedly been a huge amount of discussion about the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns. This isn’t a surprise when considering the impact that the pandemic has had on practically every aspect of our individual lives. At the beginning of the lockdown, we were each asked to do something that on the surface sounds straightforward, in order to stop the spread of the virus – stay at home, save lives.
Stay at home? Sounds simple enough right? As I’m sure many of us would now agree, this is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds. Of course it’s not as straightforward as just staying at home and expecting life to continue as normal. For many people, this isn’t a reality. Whilst the pandemic and the lockdown has impacted people differently according to individual circumstance, perhaps one lesser known impact of the pandemic has been on gambling tendencies.
A simple search on Google (or a search engine of your choice) will reveal that almost as soon as lockdowns began, search interest in online casinos hit an all-time high. This fact may not come as a shock given that lockdown meant the closure of physical gambling venues and the cancellation of sports events. What may be more surprising is the fact despite the increased interest in online gambling, there was an overall drop in gambling activity at the beginning of the lockdown.
This was mainly down to a reduction in more ‘casual’ gambling, with betting on live sporting events coming to a halt. However, the data from early stages of the lockdown showed that more ‘engaged’ gambling habits were worsening with active gamblers spending more money during the lockdown. This presented a concerning context for those more at risk as factors contributing to gambling problems were amplified during the lockdown (financial distress, isolation and boredom).
Additionally, since the 31st March, all online gamblers in Britain have had to register with Gamstop. Gamstop is a free service that allows gamblers to self-exclude from online gambling sites with one registration. They choose a minimum exclusion period of either six months, one year, or five years. Although there’s been a rise in the number of people asking for their exclusion to be reversed since lockdown began, once registered the service doesn’t allow cancellation until the minimum period originally selected has expired.
Whilst concerns around online gambling during the continued lockdown period remain high, particularly for engaged gamblers, the lockdown does seem to have triggered a renewed interest from regulators around the advertisement of gambling services and new procedures have been introduced since the beginning of the lockdown, to make it easier for individuals to exclude themselves from online gambling sites. Whilst this is a step in the right direction, many will feel that the regulation of the gambling industry as a whole still has a long way to go in order to better monitor irresponsible behaviour from outlets, and offer more help to those with gambling problems.