Despite the growth that sports betting experienced during the pandemic and the quarantine of 2020, some operators did not manage to do things well enough to participate in the growth of the sector in recent months.
The biggest obstacle faced by sports betting operators was the transformation from physical outlets to a full digital experience.
Not everything was rosy
Companies that had a presence in localized gambling (casinos) and sports betting had to close or decrease their presence in the casino sector to focus on a fully digital business model and focus on sports betting. This, due to the fact that internet betting along with online casinos were the ones who benefited the most from this situation, surpassing $8.3 billion in sales, that is, 73% more than what was registered in 2019.
Spanish operators such as Luckia and Sportium were left behind by the face-to-face closure and gave ground to those operators who had a greater financial muscle and a totally opposite strategy.
Of the authorized contracts for Gambling games operated by Internet, only one has been cancelled and two more are waiting for the remaining months to be fulfilled in order to terminate their operations.
Now, it is expected that several of the operators that have managed to stay on their feet will start to see a growth during this new quarter of the year, since the adaptation time of the pandemic managed to equalize the different services of sports betting, and with the beginning of the America Cup in Brazil, the bookmakers see an even greater opportunity to continue adding milestones to their list, They foresee a growth of 20% to 40% in the volume of sales, these values would obviously vary according to the strength with which each operator positioned itself during the pandemic, as sporting events have begun to recover again despite the measures imposed by federations, governments and others with cancellations of sporting events, strict reduction of capacity, among others.
A promising future
In some sites the Copa America can represent 50% of the betting activity and in others it can reach 63%, this varies depending on the capacity they have to offer bets on other events such as eSports.
"Online betting will increases considerably for the Copa América, as it usually happens with other international championships", said the president of Coljuegos, César Augusto Valencia.
Despite the fact that at the end of this year, Coljuegos expects to collect $106,010 million from exploitation rights, which represents an increase of 12% compared to 2020, several sports betting operators did not manage to make the right decisions during the pandemic and even more with the closure of sporting events, forcing them to terminate contracts with Coljuegos.
Some bookmakers seeking to expand their market share claim that in a single promotional draw players can win up to 140 million pesos in prizes, which shows the strong competition in the sector to take advantage of one of the most important sporting events in the continent, as there is no doubt that soccer is one of the sports that most generates passions among Colombians, and therefore, bets for this category are the most represented in the total online offer, only during the next month the percentage could increase up to 10 points in the growth of their platforms.
