Spanish iGaming Dashboard – Q1 2019

Spain's online gambling market enjoyed a strong first quarter, with February in particular a standout, driven by the strong performance of the sports betting vertical.

iGaming Business and Ficom Leisure are pleased to present the Spain iGaming Dashboard, providing revenue, product and player metrics on the dot.es regulated market.

The data is updated quarterly following the official release of the figures by Spanish regulator the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ).

Spain’s regulated online gambling market enjoyed a strong start to 2019, with revenue for the three months ended March 31 rising 20.1% year-on-year to €193.3m (£170.9m/$216.2m).

Growth was driven by sports betting, which accounted for €81.7m of revenue, a rise of 26.6% from Q1 2018. Casino also performed strongly over the period, with revenue up 20.2% to €67.1m.

Looking at three months of the quarter, February proved to be the stronger month, with total revenue amounting to €70.8m. This was predominantly due to a stellar month for sports betting, which accounted for €41.9m (59.2%) of the month’s total.

This marked a significant improvement on the vertical’s €27.2m total for January, though it failed to maintain this performance in March, when revenue declined to €31.8m.

Casino, meanwhile, enjoyed its strongest month in March, when revenue hit €24.5m, the largest monthly total since Spain regulated online gambling.

Poker, on the other hand, continues to struggle, largely due to the weak performance of cash games, with revenue fluctuating around €2.5m over Q1, having never broken the €3m barrier since the market regulated.

Tournament entry fees proved more robust, with revenue topping €4m for each month, though steadily declining from a high of €5.0m in January. This figure was the highest reported since Ficom began providing the in-depth coverage of the Spanish market in 2016.

Ficom Leisure also provides exclusive monthly estimates on the Italian online market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard, including operator market shares across casino, sports betting and poker.

It also provides monthly estimates on New Jersey in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, as well as quarterly estimates on Denmark in the Denmark iGaming Dashboard and Portugal in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.

European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure is a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.