Online gambling revenue surge in Portugal during World Cup

Portugal’s gambling regulatory body, Serviço Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal (SRIJ), reports that the country’s online sports betting revenue touched €20.5m in the three months ending June 30. It is a big leap from the €13.9m posted in the same period last year and even the €17.4m posted in the first three months of 2018. This rise in revenue is attributed to the frenzy over the the 2018 FIFA World Cup, in which Portugal did not perform particularly well, however.

Portugal has eight licensed online gambling companies, hold 13 online licenses overall. These companies witnessed more than 103k new customer registrations in the second quarter. Predictably more than 50k new customers signed up during the early stages of the World Cup.

Total sports betting handle hit €89.8m in Q2, a year-on-year increase of more than €22m, although Q2’s figure marked a sequential decline from Q1’s €100.3m. To no one’s surprise, football accounted for nearly three-quarters (74.4 per cent) of all sports wagers in Q2, with tennis (14.2 per cent and basketball (7.2 per cent) well back of the mark).

The online casino vertical, into which the SRIJ lumps its lone poker licensee The Stars Group, reported revenue of €16.8m, a €5.4m improvement year-on-year but only €800k higher than Q1.

Slots remained the top online casino vertical, accounting for 55.4 per cent of Q1’s casino revenue. Poker cash games claimed a 15.3 per cent share while tournament poker hit 5.1 per cent, for a combined poker share of 20.4 per cent, up from 18.6 per cent in Q1. The poker gains are likely attributable to Portugal joining PokerStars’ new European liquidity pool with France and Spain.

The government’s share of Q2’s online revenue hit €16.9m, up €3.6m year-on-year. Portugal imposes a variable tax rate on sports betting turnover that tops out at 16 per cent, a punitive measure that has been blamed for the market’s inability to “channel” local punters to locally licensed gambling sites.

Rather than reduce the tax rate, the government has prioritised efforts to eliminate the option of playing with international sites. As of June 30, the SRIJ has issued notices to some 302 international sites and ordered local internet service providers to block 237 of these domains. The SRIJ has forwarded the names of 11 particularly recalcitrant operators to local prosecutors “for the purpose of proceedings.”

For a month now, Spanish gaming operator Luckia has been telling media outlets that it has secured an online gambling license from the SRIJ, although the SRIJ’s official roster of online licensees has yet to confirm this approval. Nonetheless, Luckia has stated that it intends to launch its Portuguese operations in September, so confirmation should be imminent.

Source: calvinayre.com