Spain's Online Sports Betting Reclaims Top Spot
Published January 17, 2021 by Sol FH
Sports betting is the sole gambling vertical to post a sequential gain in Q3 of 2020.
Online Sports gambling in Spain has been a hit since the day it was legal to do so. For a long time, Spanish punters would out-weigh Spanish casino players' spend, but, all forms of iGaming took a hit after COVID-19 lockdowns. The good news for online bookmakers operating in Spain is that revenue is back up, albeit still down from last year's year-on-year totals.
Figures released last week by Spain's Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) regulatory body show that across all online gambling verticals of locally licensed operators reached revenue of €191.2m in the three months ending September 30. This was a rise of 2.8 percent year-on-year, but down from Q2 by 5.6 percent.
Of that total revenue, online sports betting took top honors at €85.2m, which actually means it dropped 15.4% year-on-year but increased by 1/4 from Q2 2020.
Pre-match wagers took the biggest year-on-year loss, with revenue dropping to €31.5m or 21.4%, while live in-play betting dropped to €52.6m or 9%. They were both up nearly 1/3 sequentially.
Horseracing came back to the odds but actually produced negative revenue of €1.3m, despite horseracing turnover nearly tripling from Q2 totals, and more than doubling year-on-year.
Casino gambling was up 26% year-on-year but dropped 10.3% sequentially. Total revenue by locally licensed online casinos hit €83.9m. The most popular game remains the slots with revenue of €49.8m, up nearly 30% year-on-year but dropping to 4% from Q2.
Q3 gains came despite Spain's new online gambling marketing restrictions. All existing marketing partnerships will expire in the spring of 2021, which created a last-minute flurry to make new sponsorship deals. With the new regulations almost implemented, it will be interesting to see if online sports betting can remain Spain's top breadwinner.
