Covid-19: global revenues tracking below 2011 level

H2 Gambling Capital's tracking of the cumulative impact of the pandemic on the global gambling sector has seen the biggest absolute fall in FY expectations for five weeks.

A further downgrade of $5bn or one percentage point to 23.5% below pre-pandemic expecations puts the market on track to generate just $362bn this year, behind the figure for 2011 (see Charts 1, 2 and 8).

Most of the downgrade over the past week from -22.5% to -23.5% was again driven by events in Asia, where Singapore announced casinos would remain closed indefinitely, after having been slated for reopening on 9 June (see Figures 2 and 3).

“The gambling sector has been hit harder than most, or at least significantly harder than the current IMF GDP expectations, as its share of global GDP is set to fall from 0.5% last year to c0.38% this year”. In the mid-2000s, this was in the range of 0.60-0.65%, said H2 in its commentary.

H2 added that average gross win per adult is now estimated to come in at $72 this year, down from $91 in 2019, at “a level not seen since 2004”.

Due to a greater impact of the pandemic on the land-based sector and lockdowns having accelerated the development of online offerings, the digital share of global gambling gross win is on track to reach nearly 17%, a level previously not expected until 2028 at the earliest (Chart 6).