The COVID-19 pandemic has made access to land-based gambling more difficult or impossible in many countries. The aim of this study was to examine whether online gambling behaviours changed during the early phase of the pandemic in Sweden. The authors examined a large dataset of Swedish adults who played online casino. The dataset spanned from January to May 2020. This allowed the authors to compare online gambling behaviours before the pandemic to during it. They found that the number of people gambling online increased during the pandemic. However, the size of the average bet decreased. This suggests that while more people were gambling online, they were not spending as much money compared to before the pandemic. There was also evidence that people at high risk of having a problematic relationship with gambling decreased the intensity of their gambling during the pandemic.
