2020 is over. Let us never speak of it again. Technically, the new decade begins in three days with 2021. The least that can be said is that 2021 doesn’t have a hard act to follow. Short of a nuclear alien invasion war, it can’t be any worse than 2020. Or so we hope. Though an alien invasion would, admittedly, probably be way more fun than continued lockdowns.

In short, here’s what happened in 2020 to the global gaming industry. Las Vegas and US casinos took a sledgehammer to the knees but got through the year with taxpayer bailouts and issuing a whole bunch of shares at incredibly inflated prices thanks to stock market rescues. Macau got shut down, and remains shut down, but is casinos got through the year by issuing way more debt. The United Kingdom paralyzed itself with lockdown after lockdown and also lost one of its industry jewels, William hill, to cyclically defunct Caesars, further consolidating the country’s already extremely centralized corporate superstructure into a giant pyramid resembling the Tower of Babel that will stay stable forever because they always do. GVC, seeking to change its bad-boy grey market image, changed its name to Entain, dropping the “ert” I guess, and promised to go white by 2023. No, Brexit is still not official, but might be voted on in Parliament today.

Swedish stocks skyrocketed as the country seemed to let viruses do what viruses do without making too much of a fuss about it. Cambodia actually got control of the virus, which might have something to do with the country having one of the youngest populations in the world, and Nagacorp did well. Russia’s Primorye took more baby steps forward despite the pandemic, and still looks like the Next Big Thing in gaming, especially with Macau paralyzed indefinitely.

So what’s with 2021? Here’s a region by region rundown.