The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic has sent societies all over the world spinning into unprecedented times. Naturally, the main concern for the worldwide population is staying healthy, but Covid-19 has also had a massively detrimental effect on economies all over the planet.
The sudden cancellation of all sports events is a source of huge frustration for professional sportsmen and women, coaching and training staff, not to mention event organisers and their employees. A whole industry defined by competitive energy has been forced to put its collective feet up, literally ordered to stay at home in many cases. As a corollary, another sector that has been hit hard is the online betting apps industry.
During any normal week, a significant proportion of the millions of spectators who love watching elite athletes strive to get the better of their peers in a competitive environment also get an added kick out of their sport by having a bet on the outcomes.
Gambling has been a form of entertainment for as long as anyone can remember, but the advent of the internet, quickly followed up by the massification of smartphones, led to an explosion of online betting and mobile apps to facilitate the practice.
Football and gambling – inseparable bedfellows
So widespread and lucrative has the gaming industry become that it is impossible to escape its influence on just about any sport. As the world’s most popular sport, this is particularly noticeable in soccer. Many of the world’s biggest football teams and competitions are sponsored by betting companies.
The English Premier League is the most watched and high-profile soccer league in the world, and without doubt the richest. Much of the revenue is generated by huge backing from the betting industry. As reported in The Guardian, at the start of the current interrupted season, half of the EPL’s shirts were emblazoned with a gambling company’s logo.
Premier League clubs stood to earn a staggering 350 million pounds from shirt sponsorship deals in 2019/20, and ten of the 20 top flight clubs displayed the branding of a gambling company, up from nine the previous season and the joint highest number ever.
But while England has long been famed for its network of Bookies and a love of gambling on a range of sports, the activity of online betting is phenomenally popular on a global scale. The fact matches can easily be watched on TV networks all over the planet, and even on individual mobile devices while in transit, means a regular gambler has no limits to satisfying his or her habit.
The official name of the Portuguese Primeira Liga from 2006 to 2008 was the Liga Bwin, having changed its name from the Liga betandwin.com the season before, as the multinational Austrian-based betting company Bwin took on a major sponsorship deal with Portuguese football.
Bets still on
Despite the doom and gloom surrounding so many sectors of business during the enforced stoppage due to the coronavirus outbreak, the betting industry does have one major advantage over others. It is able to continue, albeit with limitations.
With millions of people confined to their homes, some will no doubt be having the odd bet on outcomes such as will runaway leaders Liverpool actually win the 2019/20 league season in England? Will Portugal retain their European Championship crown in 2021? Or even betting on exactly when we will see our beloved game of soccer resume again.
