Shortly after Spain proposed new restrictive measures to online gambling and betting, advertisement and promotions, the DGOJ presented the Q1, 2020 gambling numbers, marking an overall 12.5% year-over-year increase in gambling revenue.
Sports Betting Posts Solid Results Yet Another Time in Q1, 2020
Spain’s gambling revenue has grown yet again in the first quarter of the year. Results for Q1, 2020 were up 12.5% year-over-year, thanks to accelerated activity across every vertical of the market, including sports betting as well as iGaming, bingo, and poker. However, most activities came to a halt in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic which forced most of Spain on shutdown.
Revenue leading up to March 31, however, ended up at €218.0 million or around $246 million. The official results from the Dirección General del Ordenación del Juego show that players wagered an estimated €4.80 billion or up 3.6% year-over-year.
There has been a growth in the frequency and volume of online betting and gaming accounts, with 289,340 new people signing up to place a bet, or a 5.6% more than a year before. Some 911,218 accounts were active during the reported period.
Sports betting naturally contributed the most to the overall results with €110.6 million in the books or 8.7% year-over-year growth, and 50.8% of the whole quarterly total. Fixed-odds betting was the main and most bet-on market, which also grew by 13.1%.
Interestingly, live betting, or in-play betting as it’s known, accounted for the second-largest generator of revenue with €61.3 million during the period, or 4% year-over-year.
Spanish Online Casinos Mark an Uptick in Results
Another vertical of growth was online gaming in Spain. The revenue was up by 16.8% over the period, arriving at €77.6 million over the entire reported period released in DGOJ’s latest numbers. Slots were the main driver of growth with €43.2 million of the total revenue.
Interestingly, live roulette added €18.4 million to the total revenue, which constituted a 35.6% growth in the specific segment, DGOJ reported. Meanwhile, poker has seen more people joining and trying the game. The revenue stood at €24.2 million or a 13.1% increase year-over-year.
Tournaments during the lockdown grew quickly, the regulator explained, and cash game contributions rose by 7.9% to €8.1 million. Bingo operations added another €3.7 million to the overall results, marking a 14.7% overall increase in activities.
DGOJ offered insight into marketing investment by gambling firms, which saw another 28.3% in Q1 and ended with €118.2 million. However, marketing efforts may soon come to a halt, after Spain sent a revised gambling regulation proposal to the European Commission.
Effectively, Spain wants to curb the reach of gambling advertisement, suspend most promotions, and tighten the control and restrictions over the sector. Some of those measures were part of ad-hoc solutions during the lockdown, but they have now been inked into the long-term plans of the government.
Should they come into effect, this may stop years of growth Spain has been posting recently. Gambling advertisements were limited when the COVID-19 crisis began. But even before that, the government said that it would seek to suspend at least 80% of all gambling advertisements in the country.