Online gaming market continues to soar despite health crisis

2020 has been a rough year so far for many industries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The online gambling industry has also suffered, primarily in terms of sports betting. Since March, many sports events have announced cancelations or postponements and therefore, sports books didn’t have enough odds to offer their customers.

Many think that the world of sports betting has taken a drastic hit over the last few months. Though this may be true for some, in general, the industry is still expanding. Check out lines.com to learn more about sports betting and the best bookies out there.

In the last three months, when sports events were scarce, many betting platforms got creative in terms of the odds they were offering. Those that aren’t usually posted were made available and many went out of their comfort zones.

Some online bookies began offering odds on events that are not sports-related. Somehow, this helped bookies thrive. This was a different story for online bookies with casino offerings however.

A way to prove that the betting industry did not suffer too badly during the last few months is how DraftKings was able to complete a merger with the Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corporation and SBTech, a gaming tech company.

The merger enabled DraftKings to start trading on NASDAQ in April and on its first day, its value ended at 19.35 US dollars per share. Since then, DraftKings’ stock continued to rise and even peaked at 44.79 US dollars per share. Just a few weeks after this, DraftKings then announced that the company and its shareholders were ready to sell additional shares to the market that is worth around 33 million US dollars.

Aside from DraftKings, GAN Limited, a business-to-business supplier of iGaming software services in the US also had its IPO in the midst of a health crisis. GAN Limited’s opening price was at $8.50 per share on NASDAQ in May. Since then, its value rose and peaked at $25.69 per share on 10 July.

Recently, ROAR Digital, the joint venture that was launched in 2018 between MGM Resorts and GVC Holdings, announced that both companies would be investing more funds into this venture. The initial committed funds by these two big companies were valued at 200 million US dollars. However, since there will be more funds available, the committed funds can then be raised up to $450 million.  MGM also stated that BETMGM is on track and should be able to operate in 11 states by the end of this year.

These mergers and events within the sports betting industry just show that the business is still alive and thriving. It may have had a bit of setback in the last few months because of the lack of sports events, but the bigger picture is still looking good for the industry.

Major sports events like the EPL 1has already returned and more sports events are expected to make a comeback in the next few weeks and months. With this, sorely affected sports books should also be able to make a comeback. People missed sports and they are just now more willing and excited to spend money on it through wagering.

Now, because of the pandemic, many also realized online gaming and gambling are basically in the same division. IGaming doesn’t only mean gambling online. It also points to the direction of the online gaming industry, including offerings like online casinos and other online games.

In the last few years, companies like Epic Games made a name on the iGaming sector. Epic Games is the developer of the now widely played game called Fortnite. Even if this company is popularly known for developing video games, the potential for the company to also work on something for the online gambling sector is there.

This is just like how Unity Technologies is doing its business. This company is mainly known for developing mobile games and video gaming software, but it also markets itself as a developer of online and retail casino software. This means that they are also able to market mobile casino games.

The relationship between the online gaming and gambling sector is becoming deeper and this just really helps boost both industries. Many things could still happen before the year ends, but anyway, the online gambling sector is still set to explode in the next few years.