Running a gambling business during normal times can be fraught with challenges and hurdles to overcome, but doing so during COVID times makes it doubly so. For Spain-based Alea, which had to contend with some of the earliest problems of this pandemic, it’s even more the case. To see how the company has been managing since this crisis started, our Becky Liggero Fontana caught up with Co-founder Alexandre Tomic.

We can say that we, actually we’re lucky,” Tomic began, in response to a question about how the company is currently doing. “We have an increase of numbers, I mean if you see restaurants that cook, they’re really closing, they did a lot of business, retail businesses are closing. We don’t feel the struggle, quite on the opposite, we see an increase of numbers. We don’t see a higher spend per player, we see more new players coming up, and I believe that the players we see coming up in the casino, are more players that usually will go on sports betting, so we see them coming in the casino.”

Unfortunately though, with the economy certain to take a hit from massive unemployment, Tomic knows hard times could be on the way. “If this situation lasts because obviously people are going to review their priorities and gambling is not going to be a priority,” he said. “I mean unfortunately, some people are going to lose their jobs, or even if they don’t, they will stop thinking that it should be if it continues that they would not spend the money on gambling.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCotoxS0lyQVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Alexandre Tomic shares his views on the COVID-19 pandemic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCotoxS0lyQ)