Danish gambling market rises thanks to online casinos

Spillemyndigheden, the Danish Gambling Authority recently released their 2017 annual report showing a revenue increase of $1.53bn, but also a 19% increase of their online casino market reaching almost $300m.

On the other side land-based casinos saw a decrease of revenue by 1.3% to $62m. The presented figures reveal the rise of online gambling in the nordic country as the leading form of revenue for the Danish Gambling Authority with more than 51% of the gambling taking place online.

According to the Danish Gambling Authority sports betting also saw an increase of 7.4% to $36m in 2016 to $38.7m in 2017 this being 25% of the total market share for last year.

Last year the Danish parliament liberalised betting on horse racing, dog racing, pigeon racing and also online bingo which came to effect on the first day of 2018. The Danish Gambling Authority stated that ‘hard at work fine-tuning processes to take into account these new opportunities for gambling’. With this being said looks like the future looks bright for the Danish market.

Last year also saw the issue of problem gamblers being addressed by the authorities with TV commercials which led to the self-excluded players (ROFUS) expansion by 46%. The Danish Authority also signed some interesting international partnerships with peers from other Scandinavian countries, Spain but also the UK to share expertise on problem gambling.

Commenting on the strategy for next year, Director of the Danish Gaming Authority, Birgitte Sand, said: “In my view, the best way to maintain a well-functioning market in Denmark will be having everyone involved taking responsibility – and preferably beyond what we as a minimum have to do.

“It can only be for the better, if we take on a shared responsibility to ensure gamblers have access to fair gambling products, and collaborate on implementation and compliance”.