Rohan MathawanDuring the past few weeks, major sports leagues around the world have announced that some of their scheduled matches had to be called off or canceled. Some leagues even had to postpone the whole season instead to help the efforts of the people and the government to stop or at least slow down the spread of the 2019 coronavirus or COVID-19.
Because of what’s happening in the sports industry, sportsbooks are dealing with the lack of fixtures and odds to offer to their punters. There are still sports events that aren’t canceled in some parts of the world and it is likely that you’ll be seeing odds for those offered online.
While many casinos and sportsbooks were forced to stop their operations, there still are bookies out there that are online like 10Cric. You can download this betting app for Android and iOS to wager on the sports events that will push through. There are still cricket games that will push through without spectators.
Bookies like William Hill, Circa Sports, and Caesars Palace all have decided to keep their online platforms and mobile apps running as well. What these bookies ensure is that they still have offs to offer despite the temporary loss of major sports leagues.
The English Premier League, the Indian Premier League, the NBA, NHL, MLB, and March Madness have all been either canceled or on hold. Sports bookies are preparing contingency plans to keep their businesses operating and to also keep their employee bases and avoid having to lay people off.
Not all bookies would offer daily-fantasy sports to their customers unlike the giants in the industry like FanDuel and DraftKings. Both are already leaning towards their daily-fantasy businesses.
Another remedy that bookies are now looking at is to expand the variety of the odds they are offering. They are now launching betting pools around different topics. Punters can now wager on topics like politics. This means they can wager on the result of the elections.
Some would also let punters wager on the weather, different TV shows, and other events that people may be interested in. It’s a way for them to cope with the betting losses and to somehow also help their customers remain entertained despite the lack of sports.
There still are sports events that are pushing through despite the crisis and bookies are also turning to them. Small or international sports events like horse racing, rugby, and other sports events in South America and Russia are still pushing through. The Australian A-League soccer is still in place as of the moment.
William Hill now offers Sumo wrestling odds too as the Haru Basho 2020 in Japan is pushing through. Caesars Palace is also offering Australian Rules Football and even mini-golf tournaments. For other states, they plan on adding more soccer and handball odds.
The director of Circa Sports Matt Metcalf expressed that he was pleasantly surprised with the action and win sports that they don’t usually offer like the Australia A-League and Belarusian Premier League which concerns football.
Metcalf said, “Derek (Circa owner Stevens) has tasked us with trying to be as creative as possible and make as many markets as we’re able to. We’ve had multiple professional bettors reach out to us saying they don’t care what the sport is just to keep making markets and I couldn’t agree more with that request.”
He added, “We are here to accept wagers on anything we are legally able to and allow for customers to try and make money off those events whether it’s Australian football or our attempt at iRacing. Obviously, the more popular the sport is the more we’ll cater to those markets but I’m not here to tell people what to bet on. It’s up to us to let the money speak.”
Now, even the sports leagues and associations like NASCAR are also leaning towards video-game simulations or e-sports. Some other betting sites are also shifting their focus towards this. E-Sports may just really provide more betting opportunities for people these days.
All these bookies will really have to be creative for now to keep their businesses and their customer betting as they wait for these sports events to return. Many are hopeful that these events will start to come back on as early as mid-April, but we all still have to wait and see how things go in the next few weeks regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.