Coronavirus pandemic has stopped almost all kinds of sports across the globe. NBA, NHL, and MLB are all off the board.
The same goes for the most popular soccer and basketball leagues overseas as the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Champions League, Europa League, EuroLeague (basketball) were all suspended as a consequence of the Covid-19 chaos. All tennis, golf, snooker, and other tournaments are also called off. As social distancing suddenly became the way of life around the entire planet, the gamblers are facing a drastic reduction of options to bet on.
Sportsbooks forced to come up with alternative options
Just when online betting reached its heights, sportsbooks are forced to invent alternative betting options for their customers. However, it does not seem to be too big of a problem for them. Many sports betting operators, such as Virgin Casino online, are proving to be very creative. After all, if sportsbooks can book something, there will always be someone to bet on it. Just to underline how important it is for the operators to provide alternative betting solutions, we will say that people across the globe gambled around $150 billion last year according to the American Gaming Association. The needs of the market are huge and there is no time to waste.
Belarusian Premier League & Tom Brady
The elite class of Belarusian soccer is one of the rare competitions that were not affected by the coronavirus pandemic at all. It suddenly became the most important soccer league in the world and punters across the globe, especially in Europe, suddenly started to back teams such as BATE, Dinamo Minsk, or Zhodino.
People in the United States were busy around Tom Brady’s move from the New England Patriots. The local sportsbooks were full of proposition bets in regards to the legendary quarterback’s next destination. The bets became as exotic as predicting minimum and maximum temperatures in different states. The app designed for this particular type of betting drew more than 10,000 users in a week. As the pandemic shows no intention of slowing down, we have reasons to expect this number to be higher in the next few weeks.
Fantasy, e-sports, presidential debate
Interest in e-sports & Fantasy betting has grown rapidly since March 17th. Entry fees for League of Legends bets increased by more than 700% in just one week. Bets on counter-strike, DOTA, FIFA and other eSports have also seen massive growth in popularity over the last few weeks.
In the lack of proper sports bets, bettors also turned to events like the “Survivor” TV series and the Democratic Party debate over who will represent them in this year’s elections.
Sportsbooks are doing everything they can to save the businesses. At the moment, they will accept almost any kind of bet you can imagine. The sports action is dead, but the betting industry is still well alive. The bettors are not quite spoilt for choice, but there are plenty of options for those who are kenen to test their luck.
