The United Kingdom held three national lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers examined expenditure on gambling advertising during these lockdowns. They also compared these expenditures to the same time points in 2019. The researchers bought 135 weeks of data from Nielsen’s Advertising Intelligence Services. Estimated spend on gambling ads during the first lockdown was 38.5% lower than 2019. Decreases in expenditure were seen across all seven subsectors (bookmakers, lotteries, online bingo, online casino and poker, gaming, pools, mobile content). But during the second lockdown, estimated expenditure was 49.3% higher than in 2019, with five subsectors having an increase compared to the same period in 2019. In the third lockdown, estimated expenditure was 5.9% higher than in 2019. This increase was reflected in four subsectors.
