Denmark's Gambling Industry Soars to New Heights in Q2

In 2012, Denmark’s gambling market transformed from being a monopoly run by state-owned operator Danske Spil to a regulated, licensed model open to foreign companies. Over the past few years, Denmark’s gambling industry has subsequently gone from strength to strength and in Q2 of 2017 posted gross gaming revenue of DKK 1.462b ($234.5m), representing a new high for the Scandinavian country of 5.7 million people.
Furthermore, the financial results released by regulatory agency Spillemyndigheden for the three months ending June 30th marked an almost 4% year-on-year increase compared to the second quarter of 2016.
Helping the industry post major gains was the online casino vertical, which saw its Q2 revenue soar by nearly 16% to DKK 458m versus Q2 of 2016, and by 10.3% compared to Q1 of 2017. As a result, the sector’s revenues from online slots and table games has more than double since Q1 2014, with slots commanding a two-thirds share of revenue, and blackjack and roulette accounting for an 8.4% and 8.3% share respectively.
Online poker, on the other hand, saw its revenue peak at DKK 47m in Q1 2014, but business has since fallen to DKK 33m in Q2 versus DKK 34.9m in Q1 2017, and DKK 37.1m in Q2 of 2016. In addition, sports betting revenue stayed flat in Q2 at DKK 522m, which in itself is impressive considering the UEFA European Football Championship took place last summer, which always attract a huge upsurge in sports betting activity.
Away from the virtual world, Denmark’s seven brick-and-mortar casinos collected DKK 95.4m in Q2, which was flat compared to last year, while revenue from gaming machines spread out in restaurants and gaming venues across the country was also flat year-over-year at DKK 387m.
Last October, Spillemyndigheden introduced its ROFUS voluntary self-exclusion registry allowing players to ban themselves from online gambling sites either on a temporary or permanent basis. As of September 1, the number of people registered for the program has increased to 11,367, with 7,777 of those people having opted to ban themselves permanently from online gambling. As is mentioned on Spillemyndigheden’s ‘Exclusion from gambling’ page:
“You can exclude yourself from playing games provided by one particular gambling provider on the gambling provider’s homepage. By registration in ROFUS, however, you exclude yourself from playing games provided by all gambling providers who have a licence from the Danish Gambling Authority.”