28/04/2010, Online casinos

CanWest has just released a recent report on gambling, showing that gambling is not a recession-proof industry. According to Statistics Canada, revenues from government-regulated online gambling had a significant decrease from $13.70 billion in 2007 to $13.67 billion in 2008, for the first time in the last 16 years.

“Gambling is discretionary spending and in tough times with the economy in a downturn, people tend to spend less on any sort of discretionary items,” said Brad Humphreys, Chair in the Economics of Gaming Department of Economics University of Alberta, commenting on the release.

During the economic decline, many players kept gambling and even increased their spendings, in a desperate bid to win money, to remain steady even throughout economic difficulties, or to simply increase their wealth. Others reached the end of their credit limit, with less money available for gambling facilities.
Although the number of the addicted players increased, the gaming industry suffered significant loses in the last couple of years.
Statistic Canada showed that even gambling is not immune to the economic recession. The gaming industry faces big lay-offs, fiscal problems and a downward trend in revenues.

“It's not a recession-proof industry, that's for sure,” said Garry Smith, a gambling research specialist at the Alberta Gaming Research Institute.
“But if you're an addict, you're still going to play and I guess that's one of the reasons it stays up there. Most industries drop significantly, gambling has levelled off and dropped a bit, but not that much,” he added.