In Sweden, the state-owned gambling operator Svenska Spel released two reports indicating overall gambling spend by Swedish players dropped during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, but problem gambling stayed the same. “These are two rather small and limited studies from which one may not draw any major conclusions, but they give indications that gambling did not increase,” said Sara Lindholm, independent research council chair at Svenska Spel.
Filip Lindner, a researcher at Karolinska Institutet, said the decline in gambling spend related to the decrease in sports betting, due to many sports events being cancelled and postponed. He also said online gamblers clearly switched from sports betting to internet casinos. He added he saw no evidence of a rise in problem gambling during the first wave of Covid-19 in Sweden.
The reports’ findings are in line with Svenska Spel’s July posting of a 9.6 percent drop in gambling revenue in the first six months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019 due to Covid-19. Overall revenue for the first six months was $420.5 million, as an increase in Svenska Spel’s Tur lottery business was offset by declines in its online Sport & Casino and land-based Casino Cosmopol and Vegas divisions.
Gaming operator AB Trav och Galopp, or ATG, also extended its support of Sweden’s $569 mandatory weekly deposit cap for online casino gambling, introduced in April in response to Covid-19. ATG Director of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility Maria Guggenberger said, “In March this year, ATG introduced a mandatory loss limit at casinos. It was no coincidence that the introduction coincided with the advent of the pandemic. It has never felt so right to help our customers make active decisions. I do not reject deposit limits or time limits, but if I had to choose a limit, I would choose a loss limit.”
Guggenberger also noted despite ATG’s fears in the early stages of the pandemic, there has been “no indication that problem gambling has increased” so far.
