The recent pandemic has led to a huge surge in new players in online casinos and betting sites, and as sporting events begin to return across the world it’s expected that this number will only continue to grow and that many of these players will be retained. During this period of time there have been a number of restrictions put in place in an effort to reduce the number of problem players that may use these sites – it may be important to understand what these restrictions are and how you can work around them to continue to play on these sites.
The first changes put in place were relatively short term and may not be in effect for many of us now – these were restrictions on advertising options or limits placed on deposit amounts, there were also some who put a complete ban in place for online gambling during this period of time too in order to limit exposure but as many countries are starting to ease lockdown measures many of these short term changes have since been removed.
The longer term changes have been much more impactful however, particularly in the UK as it had been a target for many big changes over the past few months. The first implementation was a ban on credit card usage for online gambling and betting in an effort to reduce the number of problem gamblers racking up big credit card debts. The other big change had been to an already existing initiative known as Gamstop that had been put in place in late 2018 – the self inclusion scheme allowed players to register and blacklist themselves from these services as it was made mandatory for all operators to register or be at risk of losing their gaming licenses – a growing number of operators are beginning to register outside of the UK however in countries such as Malta and Gibraltar to avoid these changes as these casinos aren’t blocked by either recent change and are available to all players and provide a way for players to safely gamble online with many big names being those who are choosing to follow this path.
The next big step is the return of sports betting as the US sees many of its major sporting events coming back this weekend, after over three months of cancellations and postponements it was a market that had really struggled and some of the changes put in place could’ve made it much more difficult for a recovery, but with these operators making these adjustments it had provided a platform for a strong recovery to happen – many will be looking at the numbers that start to emerge over the next few weeks to see if betting can reach the same numbers as other online gambling platforms, with offline esports events looking to come back too there’s a lot to look forward to for punters – if you understand the changes that have been put in place then it makes it easier to seek alternatives and start enjoying your favourite pastime again.