Arcades, bars, casinos and gaming centres across Europe are in the grip of a lockdown this week.
Curfews, partial or complete lockdowns have forced locations containing AWPs, slots, VLTs and all types of amusement machines to switch off and shut down, leaving amusement and gaming operators across the continent facing yet more losses.
Austria is now in a national lockdown for at least two weeks; Sweden has told its citizens not to contemplate a family Christmas; Italy saw yet more regions moving into the "red zones" with strict lockdowns; the four UK countries vary in impact from a national lockdown in England to different levels of restrictions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; Greece has a curfew and has even shut the schools.
In Portugal the curfew has been extended and hundreds of bar and restaurant staff demonstrated in the centre of Lisbon against the closure of businesses, while in Germany the partial lockdown remains. In France the country is entering its second week of lockdown.
Spain has a state of national emergency with the entire population forced to stay home except to buy food or medicine and again, there have been demonstrations in cities from hospitality sector workers demanding government support.
Belgium is shut down until mid-December and in the Netherlands everything has to close by 8pm but the arcades and casinos are completely stopped, along with other leisure destinations. The Czech Republic’s hospitality and entertainment industry is also stopped and the bars, restaurants and amusements industry is shut down until January 2.
The same story comes from Ireland and Norway, but Turkey, a country that has handled coronavirus better than most, still has a 10pm hospitality curfew.
