Spanish iGaming Revenues Soar 32% in Q1 2016

Spain’s gambling regulator, DGOJ, has released its financial results for the first three months of 2016 revealing a 32.1% surge in gross gaming revenues to €102.3 million ($115.9m) versus the same period of time in 2015. That figure was also 8% higher compared to Q4 of 2015.
Helping to lift Spain’s online gambling market was its sports betting product which captured 57.3% of all the country’s online business, with revenues subsequently soaring by 29% to €58.6 million. Interestingly, 29% of bets were placed pre-match, with the remaining 71% accounted for by live in-play wagers.
Online casino games produced the most dramatic growth, however, with revenues skyrocketing by 104% to €25 million, aided by a 90% improvement in the stakes wagered to €899 million. Last summer, Spain added legalized online slots to its gambling mix, and in Q1 the vertical contributed a further €9.5 million to overall revenues, higher by 12% from the previous quarter. Other gambling verticals seem to have also been positively impacted by the surge in slot player traffic, with roulette games reporting a 42.3% increase in stakes, and blackjack stakes rising by 27%. Bingo, too, managed some healthy gains with revenues growing by 9.8% to €2.2 million.
Bucking the positive trend, however, was poker which saw its revenues shrink by 12% to €14.8 million versus Q1 of 2015. Similar contractions have been noted in other major European ring-fenced markets, such as those found in France and Italy. Thankfully, these countries are now beginning to see the importance of opening their online poker markets to wider participation, and last month the French Senate voted in favor of allowing iPoker international liquidity, with the Portuguese regulator, SRIJ, also agreeing to share poker players. As SRIJ Head of Online Gambling Manuela Bandeira stated:
“International liquidity is important for poker, as it allows small markets to be more competitive. It’s not a simple issue and we need to work more closely with other regulatory bodies from different countries in order to understand how to make it work.”