It didn’t take long for the coronavirus to make its way through the united States and put a real fear into people about going into public. As a result, most businesses have shut their doors and/or sent their employees to work from home. This includes sportsbooks and casinos.
Today, Tuesday, March 24, 2020 marks the first time in history that all brick and mortar U.S. Casinos and sportsbooks have been closed. Legal online sportsbooks are still up and running at the moment. However, they are just taking bets on futures, ie., bets that predict the outcome of future events, such as which team will win the Super Bowl.
According to David Purdum of ESPN, the closures affect 649,000 gaming employees. The American Gaming Association predicts that $43.5 billion in economic activity generated by casinos will be lost.
This is a sad day for sportsbooks and casinos as all action has ceased and all sports in the U.S. have ceased play as well. The 2020 summer Olympics in Japan have officially been bumped a year. This is not the first time the Olympics have been postponed or cancelled by the way.
Hang tight and stay safe as we all weather this current global pandemic. Sports will be back before you know it. The best case scenario is the MLB starting a shortened season mid-summer sometime and football training camp starting on-time. Worst case scenario is that all sports will be cancelled until 2021.
