Spanish Market Continues to Grow, Ahead of Anticipated Major Boost

Spain’s regulated market continued to grow in Q3.

DGOJ Totals

The figures from Spanish gaming regulator Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) show locally licensed online gambling operators generated a combined revenue of €140.5m in the three months ending September 30.

The total represents a 16.6% jump from Q2 and a full 37.3% year-on-year jump shown for Q3 2016.

Expenditures

These gains were achieved despite year-on-year Q3 drop-offs in operator advertising expenditure (3%) and total value of operator bonus offers (-18.2%). The revenue gains were recovered through the near tripling of the rise in sponsorship costs to a still relatively €1.9m.

Verticals

Sports betting revenue rose 37% to a shade under €77m, with in-play betting accounting for nearly 60% of wagering revenue and 71.3% of betting volume.  Betting handles overall decreased 6.5% from Q2 while revenue jumped to 27.8%.

Q3 revenue totals of €43.9m ultimately represented jumps of 54.2% year-on-year and 4.5% from Q2. The €22.3m revenue contribution from slots continued the trend of reliance on casino revenue, with that vertical contributing a full 50% to Q3’s overall casino revenue take, for year-on-year improvement of 61.7%.

The second largest contributor to casino revenue was live roulette ranked with a €9.1m contribution representing a jump of 91.3%). Traditional revenue came in second at €6.83m (+16.2%), followed by blackjack at €5.6m (+40.2%).

Farther down the charts, bingo revenue improved 30.5% to €2.85m, with sweepstakes rising over one-quarter to €2.1m.

The Poker Q

Spain’s online poker market has shown welcome signs of life, as evinced by the continuation of modest 6.8% revenue growth of Q3 to €14.7m, pushing poker’s overall Q3 revenue into double-digits (10.5%).

Meanwhile, in Q3, tournaments saw revenue rise 18.7% to €8.8m while cash games dropped 7% to €5.9m, while in poker spending, tournament fees rose up nearly 14% while cash games dropped 5.4%.

The cash game participation and contributions from poker tournaments stands to rise when the new European Union Agreement between Spain, France, Portugal and possibly Italy kicks in.

Outlook

In the interim, Spain seems to getting the revenue infusion that it sought from regulating online play, and the hope is that this can be effectively reinvested in social programming to help the country’s environment and infrastructure.