While the coronavirus pandemic has come to pause the vast majority of sports competitions, all actors now face an opaque and uncertain environment.

In these circumstances, online sports betting bookmakers are on the front line: with a very sharp decline in activity, it is a whole ecosystem that needs to be organised today to allow users to enjoy the functionality of the platforms as well as poorly.

As focal points of authority, the latter must also enable bettors to be informed of the daily developments required by the bodies:

• Identify all cancelled and/or postponed competitions
• What are the consequences on current sports betting?
• What are the competitions still « Open » ?
• What are the alternatives to continue betting?

While there is doubt, we wish to declare your horizon by clearly targeting the points mentioned above... Here we go!

Coronavirus: competitions cancelled or postponed

Before we look at the technical details related to sports betting, we must first clearly identify the competitions already struck by the Covid-19. For if the world has almost stopped turning around, some bodies must now make strong decisions, at the level of current issues:

• Football Euro – postponed The most anticipated competition of the year will not finally take place in 2020. It fell and it's official, the UEFA decided to postpone the men's European championship to June-July 2021. A first in 60 years, the main reason for this postponement of a year is due to the suspension of national championships and European competitions (Champions League and Europa League). By shifting the competition for one year, UEFA gives itself the opportunity to see the national championships finish. The UEFA communicated as follows: « This change will contribute to the completion of all national competitions, which are currently at a standstill because of the Covid-19 emergency. ».
• Football Championship – suspended : This is the crux of the problem, championships and club cups. Not benefiting from common legislation, the various national organisations responsible for the proper conduct of meetings must compose according to the national legislation. While FIFA plays the role of an intermitter, it is currently difficult to get a clear picture of the date of recovery... Hang on!
• Roland Garros – postponed : Tennis fans will also have to do with the relentless advance of coronavirus... Roland Garros will be postponed to September (20 September to 4 October), crystallizing the tensions of the players and all the organizers. In particular, and if this is confirmed, players will have to chain 3 Grand Slams in just three months!

If you bet on one of these competitions, you might wonder what impact it will have on your bets... from the postponement to the cancelled game we explain everything!

Coronavirus: impact on your sports betting

Again, everything will depend on the choice of instances:

• If match postponed Here, you will have to take your evil in patience to know whether your bet is maintained or not. As long as the game or competition has not been officially cancelled (and the official date has not passed), your bet remains active on the chosen bookmaker's platform. Make sure you keep up to date on the evolution of decisions so that you can organize your bets and anticipate your potential ROI at best.

• If match canceled Here, the rule is clear. If the game is officially cancelled, the online bookmaker is obliged to reimburse all the bets committed. To ensure that your bet is refunded, you should consult the terms of use of your bookmaker.

• Cancellation condition : We strongly advise you to consult the general conditions of your bookmaker. Depending on the delay period, the bet will cancel or maintain your bet. Take the example Winamax: the bookmaker clearly states that if a meeting « does not start or start again within 36 hours from the official time, bets will be refunded ». Thus, all users who bet on the Euro football (reported in 2021) will be fully reimbursed by Winamax.

• At Betivore : for the refund of your bet on Betivore, nothing simpler ! When your bet is officially cancelled, you just have to pass it through « refund » directly on the web app. The amount of your bet will be directly redirected to your profile.

Now that we have set the conditions for the repayment of your current bets, it is a matter of giving you some leads in order to pass boredom during this confinement period.

On which competitions is it still possible to bet?

To allow online bookmakers to amortise losses resulting from the spread of coronavirus, ARJEL is about to offer operators new competitions on which to bet.

Indeed, the Autorité de Regulation met on Thursday 19 March to allow for an expansion of competitions open to sports betting on the Internet. Thus, the regulator is committed to offering new betting solutions, exclusive solutions that will then be submitted to bookmakers. It will then be up to each sports betting platform to choose whether or not to offer these new competitions to their users.

Today some competitions are still so accessible :

• Rugby to 13 in Australia
• Football Championship in Belarus

While the list of sporting events open to the game must meet 2 fundamental criteria (accessibility of results and transparency of regulations), ARJEL is currently working on the proposal for new competitions: in this case, Latin America appears to be an ideal playground, with still maintained sporting events and a high visibility rate enough to satisfy most users.

Beyond sports betting, some bookmakers are already looking for new alternative proposals to preserve their users and the attractiveness of their brand.

Alternatives to continue playing during the Coronavirus epidemic

In this race against the clock, some bookmakers make the choice of originality.

Thus, Betclic recently launched on Twitter a virtual race between a scorpion, a gorilla, a tiger and a monkey. The platform will also offer FIFA, Mario Kart tournaments or challenges on Instagram for winnings.

In a more classic way, most online platforms are also focusing on poker to offer new alternatives to sports betting. In this sense, many tournaments are organized by Winamax In this period of confinement, we are thinking in particular of the proposal « Private tournaments » which allows players to bet on a table made up solely of their friends.

There is thus a whole range of new offers which are supposed to counter the impact of the suspension of European and global sports competitions. In this set of proposals, it seems that e-sport will naturally become the flagship of these new alternatives.