When war or a large-scale crisis breaks out, the gambling industry is invariably confronted with the same set of questions. Do players start betting more or less? Are deposit volumes on the rise? Does audience engagement decline? Are operators and affiliates taking a hit? At first glance, the answers seem obvious. Some are certain that people abandon entertainment and cut back on spending during wartime. Others argue that stress and uncertainty inevitably drive audiences toward gambling.
However, recent studies reveal a considerably more nuanced reality. Wars seldom create new players and are far from guaranteed to stimulate market expansion. Rather, their primary effect is to profoundly transform existing audience behavior, altering spending patterns, player motivations, and the fundamental economic framework of the iGaming industry.
For operators, affiliates, and technology providers, this means that assessing the impact of crises solely through deposit volumes or traffic metrics is no longer sufficient. Far more critical is understanding what is actually happening to the players themselves.
- Political storms do not kill gambling. They reshape it in their own image. Offline gives way to online traffic and emotion-driven betting, while operators become mired in sanctions and new compliance checks. For affiliates, this translates into a race for traffic surges amid stringent GEO and financial compliance. All facets of this process, from local market failures to the shift into the shadows, are covered in How Do Wars Affect the iGaming Industry? on 3S.INFO.
Crisis Automatically Drives Gambling Growth: Myth or Reality?
One of the most widespread assumptions is that any crisis inevitably drives gambling growth. The logic appears straightforward: people experience stress, seek ways to escape their problems, and consequently start playing more frequently.
In practice, however, the reality proves far less clear-cut.
A valuable source of data emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic period, which many researchers view as a unique case of global crisis and mass psychological stress. In a review titled The Impact of COVID-19 on Gambling and Gambling Disorder, published in 2021 in the journal Current Opinion in Psychiatry, researchers Douglas Hodgins and Matthew Stevens analyzed data from multiple countries and arrived at a significant conclusion. The majority of players did not increase their gambling activity during the pandemic. Moreover, a portion of the audience actually played less frequently due to the reduction in sporting events, declining incomes, and overall uncertainty.
Similar findings emerged from a study titled A Longitudinal Study of Gambling Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Sweden, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology in 2021. The authors found no evidence of widespread growth in gambling among the general population. Instead, changes were concentrated among relatively small subgroups of players who had already demonstrated high levels of engagement prior to the crisis.
This is a crucial takeaway for the industry. A crisis alone does not transform ordinary people into gamblers. Consequently, current scientific evidence does not support a direct causal link between military conflicts and gambling market growth.
What Really Changes During Crises?
Although studies do not indicate a mass influx of new players, this does not mean that crises have no impact on gambling whatsoever.
What does change, however, are the reasons why people play.
In a study titled Gambling and Gaming During COVID-19: The Role of Mental Health and Social Motives, published in 2022 by a research group led by Iina Savolainen, a statistically significant association was identified between increased gambling activity and psychological factors. Anxiety, stress, emotional distress, and feelings of social isolation significantly elevated the likelihood of heightened gambling engagement.
In essence, the evidence points to a functional shift: for a segment of the audience, gambling begins to take on a new role. Under normal circumstances, players perceive betting or casino games as a form of entertainment. In times of crisis, however, gambling may evolve into a mechanism for emotional compensation, a means of escaping distressing news, or an attempt to regain a sense of control over unfolding events.
This is precisely why many researchers employ the term coping mechanism: a psychological strategy for adapting to stress.
For operators, crises reshape not only the frequency of play, but the very character of player behavior. Two players might each deposit the same 50 dollars, yet their underlying reasons could be entirely different. That translates into very different responsible gambling risks.
Ukraine: The First Major iGaming Case Study Amid a Full-Scale Armed Conflict
The events in Ukraine represent the first contemporary instance of a developed, regulated iGaming market operating amid a prolonged military conflict.
According to an assessment by the World Health Organization, published in the Ukraine Mental Health Assessment report in 2023, approximately 9.6 million Ukrainians may experience various mental health disorders as a result of the armed conflict. Among the most commonly cited consequences are anxiety disorders, depression, and post-traumatic stress.
This statistic alone does not indicate a rise in gambling. However, it does illustrate the scale of risk factors that are traditionally associated with problematic gambling behavior.
Particular attention to the issue of gambling emerged in 2024 following a public debate surrounding the involvement of military personnel in online gambling. A petition by Ukrainian serviceman Pavlo Petrychenko drew public and state attention to the problem of gambling addiction among certain segments of the military, who operate under conditions of constant stress and psychological strain.
As a result, the issue extended far beyond the professional community. Government authorities began discussing additional restrictions on gambling advertising, mechanisms for protecting specific categories of citizens, and the reinforcement of responsible gambling tools.
It is important to understand that this case does not constitute evidence of widespread gambling growth in the country. What it does show, however, is something else: the impact of war on player behavior can become so pronounced that it rises to the level of state policy.
The Problem May Lie Not with Players, but with the Infrastructure
When the industry discusses the impact of wars on gambling, the primary focus is typically on players. For businesses, however, a far more pressing challenge often lies in the infrastructure itself.
Even if demand for gambling persists, operators may encounter constraints that make monetizing the audience significantly more difficult.
Recent history shows that military conflicts are often accompanied by sanctions, currency controls, restrictions on international transfers, and the withdrawal of payment providers. For iGaming, this is particularly sensitive, as the entire economic model of the industry is built upon the stable functioning of payment infrastructure.
A player may be ready to make a deposit. An affiliate may deliver high-quality traffic. An operator may offer a competitive product. But if the payment chain is broken, the economics begin to collapse regardless of the level of demand.
This is precisely why many experts believe that the greatest risks for iGaming during crises lie not in marketing or user acquisition, but in payments and financial logistics.
Against the backdrop of rising traffic costs and intensifying competition for players, it is the seamlessness of the payment experience that begins to outweigh even generous bonuses and creative promotions. In the article Payments: The New Battleground in iGaming on 3S.INFO, we examine in detail why the deposit process is becoming the central axis of the iGaming economy, how payment infrastructure reshapes the behavior of both players and affiliates, and why, by 2026, a well-crafted payment strategy is emerging as one of the key assets for any operator.
The Impact of Crises Differs Between Casino and Betting
Another distinguishing feature of crisis periods is that different verticals respond to them in unequal ways.
Betting is closely tied to the sports calendar. Any major upheaval has the potential to affect the scheduling of tournaments, international competitions, and individual sporting events. The COVID-19 pandemic vividly demonstrated this dependency, when the cancellation of competitions led to a significant decline in betting volume across many jurisdictions.
Casino products are structured differently. They do not depend on match schedules and remain accessible to users around the clock, regardless of external circumstances.
For this reason, during crises, the market structure can shift even in the absence of overall revenue growth or decline. The share of casino in total GGR may increase, while the share of sports betting may contract.
This is particularly important for operators active across multiple verticals. Analyzing aggregate revenue becomes insufficient. It is essential to understand which specific products are driving the business under new conditions.
The Key Takeaway for Operators and Affiliates
The primary mistake the industry often makes when analyzing crises is attempting to assess the situation solely through traffic, deposits, and revenue metrics.
Research from recent years points to a different, far more critical factor. During wars, pandemics, and economic upheavals, what changes is not so much the number of players, but the very nature of their behavior.
Crises amplify the role of psychological factors, reshaping user motivation, elevating the importance of responsible gambling tools, and creating new risks for specific audience segments. At the same time, they can reconfigure payment infrastructure and alter the balance between different verticals within the market.
Therefore, the question "does gambling grow or decline during war" proves to be far too simplistic.
A more accurate question is framed differently: what happens to player behavior, and how prepared is the industry to adapt to these changes?
Business resilience today largely depends on the answer to that very question. Wars rarely create new players, but they can fundamentally transform why existing ones engage. And for operators and affiliates, such shifts often prove more consequential than any traffic metrics.
