Despite the ongoing pandemic one of the few constants that many have turned to over the past few months has been within online gaming, particularly in the online gambling genre as mobile casinos have found a new surge in players leading some to believe that there is an ongoing gambling pandemic happening too – with sporting events returning across the world, there has been a re-emergence in sports betting too which has continued to grow this sector but a number of big changes that had occurred in late March and early April could have a wider reaching impact on many gamers in some parts of the world.
The first round of changes were only temporary – short term restrictions on television and radio advertising had been put into place to prevent the chance of exposure to new or at risk players during the lockdown, some countries had also implemented changes to limit deposit amounts during this same period of time to bring down the amount of time being played with others outright banning online gambling as a whole – whilst many of these measures have since been lifted others may stick around for a little longer in a bid to keep new players measurable.
The other changes have been more permanent for many countries too – one change has been with an ban to credit card usage for online betting and gambling to reduce the possibility of building credit card debt for problem players, this came alongside a change to the Gamstop initiative launched in the UK in 2018 which is a self inclusion scheme for players to voluntarily restrict the number of sites they’re able to access, this initiative had been made mandatory for all UK based operators or they would be at risk of losing their gaming licenses, a growing number of operators have chosen to register elsewhere in countries such as Malta and Gibraltar to avoid these restrictions however as a growing number of when looking here have become widely available for players.
More changes are expected to follow too – the rapid surge in players hasn’t only been attributed to the pandemic and the lockdown that followed but also due to the increasing audience playing these games – the primary audience in mobile gaming has been changing over the past few years and there’s no longer a majority in young teen males as research suggests that over half of mobile gamers are in fact women over the age of 34 – this growing audience with a disposable income and the time to play during leisure hours has been attributed to the growth in popularity and with more free time granted to these players it has been a very successful period of time – it has also been suggested that many of these new players are likely to be retained once measures start to ease as new players develop their own passion and hobby for these games – if you’re already a fan of these games, it’s an exciting time as many are offering a lot of benefits for playing during this period of time.
