Demographics in Portugal Demonstrate New iGaming Growth

New figures from the six companies in Portugal provided an early blueprint for adapted market expansion in a country as in need of cash infusion as any of the latest regulating jurisdictions.    

Total License Progress

The official report from Portuguese regulator (Serviço Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portuga) indicates that Portuguese-licensed sites have signed up a total of over 523k customers since market launch, with the most new registrations taking place in Q4 (267,500), encompassing the November launch of Amaya Gaming’s PokerStars brand. This is a significant spike from the 112k new accounts opened in Q1 2017.

Patronage Breakdown

As for demographics, a user locus was generated to reveal that the majority of online gamblers in Portugal are under 34 years of age; while 29.3% are between the ages of 18-24 years old; a further 40% aged 25-34; and less than 10% of registered customers over the age of 45.

Self-Protection Participants

As for the unique self exclusion model enabling problem gamblers to put themselves on lists for enforced timeouts, a March 31^st figure put the number of gamblers who’ve requested self-exclusion from Portuguese-licensed sites at 11,300, an amount equal to approximately 2.2% of the total number of players.  Two thousand of these players subsequently rescinded their self-exclusion request.

Financial Totals

According to SRIJ, a total amount of €82.2 million has been generated so far, with sports betting emerging as the highest grossing sector during the ten months of the report’s prognostications at 70% of the Portuguese iGaming market. Online slot machines are second at just short of 34% so far, with poker revenue following at 32.72% of the online casino take. 

New Landscape

The landscape in Portugal first took shape last November. What has evolved is an expansion of licenses driving a strengthening consolidation of the overall sports betting market itself from US$20 million in Q4 2016 to US$19.5 million for Q1 2017. Gaming providers Bet Entertainment Technologies and Betclic led this shift by collecting 70 percent of the revenue total of US$64.8 million.

Outlook

These figures indicate that Portugal’s fledgling market is rapidly gaining hold, and the small market could be a very appealing place for inexpensive licensing and expansion in the coming months.