Sweden Grows Online, with Overall Totals Yet to Catch Up After Q3
Published November 18, 2019 by Lee R
Q3 figures map out how the largest market in Scandinavia is adapting to online play in a liberalised market.
Swedish Gaming Authority Spelinspektionen figures report an undesirable drop in Q3 revenue during the key market's first year of regulation, despite online growth.
The Drop
The drop of 3.5% for the three-month period ending in September took place despite continued growth from the newly regulated sports betting and online casino segment, which brought in revenues of SEK3,484m in Q3.
Commercial Play
Commercial online gambling and betting combined with online gaming on ships in international traffic totaled SEK3.48bn (£281m/€327m/$362m), rising form Q2's SEK3.48bn.
Online
Overall gambling revenue for Q3 topped out at SEK5.90bn, down from Q2's SEK6.11bn and Q1's SEK5.94bn in the first quarter of 2019.
Lottery and Slots
Revenue from state lottery and slot machines dropped 3.2% from SEK1.41bn in Q2 to SEK1.37bn; while state casino games revenue attributable to Casino Cosmopol held steady at SEK245m.
Charitable and Lottery
Charitable games and national lotteries fell 20.0% to SEK740m, while land-based commercial gaming at restaurant casinos climbed slightly from SEK54m to SEK59m.
Self-Exclusions
As far as self-exclusion, Spelinspektionen revealed that 41,703 people signed to innovative self-exclusion register Spelpaus.se, a jump up from Q2's 11.0%.
Data from the beginning of November revealed the total number of people self-excluding topping 44,000.
Market Size
At this point, there are 92 licenced operators in Sweden's still attractive regulated new market.
Comparing Results
At this point, total online revenue for this first year of liberalised regulation stands at SEK10.24b for 2019, a total that turns out to be slightly below the SEK10.87b Spelinspektionen for the first three quarters of 2018 in the monopoly environment of state-owned Svenska Spel; AB Trav and Galopp (ATG) horse-racing monopoly; and internationally licensed online operators previously prohibited from legally serving Swedish customers.
Channeling
For H1, Spelinspektionen claims to have effectively channeled 91% of Swedish online players to locally licensed operators, while planning to improve the results by year's end with payment blocks on remaining unlicenced operators attempting to serve Swedish players.
Outlook
Slight declines in online play remain stable, in a market where the revenue source did not exist at all last year. Overall, an adjustment period is not surprisingly taking place in Sweden, where the transition to the more convenient online gaming options now available in Sweden have caused a delayed reaction in the totals. The development of self-exclusion and the elimination of all rogue operators at this point appearing the final tweaks to smooth sailing in the liberalised and regulated market.
