How Casinos in Pennsylvania Struggled in 2020?

Updated on March 10, 2021

Although it is easy to blame Covid-19 for all the issues businesses and people in general experienced in 2020, to find out why casinos in Pennsylvania struggled it is necessary to go further into the past. 

Even before the lockdowns, visitors to terrestrial casinos were diminishing in number due to the rise of online gambling. Simply, it is cheaper and more accessible to gamble on your phone if gambling alone is what you are after. 

If we consider all of these aspects, we can take out three major reasons why casinos in Pennsylvania are still struggling:

  1. Lockdowns
  2. The rise in online gambling
  3. Insufficient services 

The third point might not seem so obvious, especially in such an acute situation – such as the pandemic. But, it is obvious that people won’t settle for just any casino if they have cheaper and better online options. 

Brick and mortar casinos need to dazzle us with their opulence and grandeur. As online casino options are becoming better every day both visually and with their offers, physical casinos need to surpass them in another way. 

How Covid-19 Impacted Casinos in 2020?

In the last two years, one of the major reasons cited at Casinos.us on why casinos in Pennsylvania have had struggles to keep their popularity and why casinos revenue dropped massively is because of Covid-19. 

On top of that, the exponential growth of the online casino industry made it so that traditional casinos were cast in their shadow and by all accounts, the way out seems pretty difficult. 

Due to lockdown schools and all jobs that can be done from home have shifted to the digital world including the casino industry. 

Even when there was a short opening of land-based casinos people did not go as much because they realized that they can gamble in the comfort of their home without putting themselves at risk.

While it’s true that a big reason for the collapse of bookmakers is the covid-19, still the much bigger reason is that something better and more affordable has appeared. 

Now as the pandemic comes to an end, we remain to monitor and see if the casinos will have a great comeback or a complete failure. 

Long Time in the Making 

If we say that the global pandemic is the only reason why land-based casinos suffered we would be lying. The truth is that change took place long before the coronavirus. 

For example, if you walked down the street you could spot half-empty casinos even on days when it used to be crowded. That’s because online casinos have been on the rise for quite some time it just so happened that because of the lockdown it gained so much attention and popularity at once. 

Generally, online casinos have been serious competitors for years but traditional casinos have obviously not taken them seriously and they could not have predicted what would happen. 

Given that they are in a sticky situation they will have to work hard to win back their audience otherwise they will go into oblivion. 

Advantages of Online Gambling

If there is one thing that can be said with certainty is that people will always look for and choose the easier way for anything. And when it comes to online gambling it certainly has infinite advantages and convenience. 

The first and most obvious advantage of online gambling is comfort, followed closely by easy accessibility. You can gamble whenever and wherever you want to as long as you have some digital device and good Wi-Fi. 

Secondly, we can all agree that time and nerves are two of the most precious things to us, and the more we have of them the better. When you go to traditional casinos you have to spend some time and nerves on the road and potential traffic jams, which isn’t present with online options. 

Finally, apart from the fact that online casinos offer a variety of games they also offer a lot of free games. So you can practice or test them to see if you like it and if you do then you can actually start playing with real money. 

Terrestrial Casinos to Change Their Business Model

Generally, when this pandemic is over terrestrial casinos will certainly have a fair chance of an awesome comeback and the ability to shake up the competition. 

In order to do that they would have to blow away the audience with some abnormally good offer which is very questionable whether it will succeed. 

The biggest advantage that land-based casinos have over online casinos is their appearance. 

One thing that suits every eye is seeing luxury. So if casinos are done lavishly and expensively people will come to bet solely because of the beautiful environment and that is something that can really bring casinos back to the top of the game. 

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