iGaming growth pushes Lithuanian market revenue to €112.6m

Gambling revenue in Lithuania increased by 13.1% year-on-year to €112.6m (£93.9m/$122.2bn) in 2019, due in part to significant growth in the country’s online gaming market.

The year was the first in which total market revenue grew in excess of €100m, with consumers spending a total of €1.10bn across land-based and online channels, winning €987.4m.

Analysing the annual figures, the Lithuania Gambling Supervisory Authority put the growth primarily down to ongoing expansion within the country’s remote gambling market.

In 2019, online gambling revenue amounted to €40.5m, a 44.5% year-on-year increase.

Remote betting was the main source of online income, climbing 31.1% year-on-year to €23.9m, while online tables games amounted to €420,978, up from €420,978 in the previous year.

Online slos revenue was split between Category A and B machines. Category A is a machine with unlimited winnings where the maximum single win is unlimited, while Category B machines have a maximum stake of €0.5, the max win per game cannot exceed the stake by 200 times and the duration of a game is not less than three seconds.

Online Category A machine revenue was up 74.5% year-on-year to €15.3m, while Category B increased 35.5% to €839,399.

Lithuania legalised remote gambling in 2016 and the country has seen its market grow year-on-year since launch. During the first year, online gaming revenue hit €15.5m, before climbing to €21.8m in 2017 and €28.0m in 2018.

In terms of land-based gambling in 2019, Category B slot machine generated the most income for operators, with revenue remaining level at €32.7m. Category A machine revenue was up 4.5% to €12.2m.

Table games revenue was down slightly from €16.8m to €16.7m, while betting revenue increased 3.9% to €10.6m.

Lithuania legalised remote gambling in 2016 and the country has seen its market grow year-on-year since launch. During the first year, online gaming revenue hit €15.5m, before climbing to €21.8m in 2017 and €28.0m in 2018.

Meanwhile, the Supervisory Authority also released figures that suggested the annual cost of gambling and lotteries per household in 2019 accounted for 23% of total recreation and culture spending.

Consumers spent a total of €113.9m on lottery tickets last year, which was 8.3% more than in the previous year. Players won €64.0m on the lottery in 2019, up 9.8% on 2018.

Publication of the annual results comes after Lithuania’s legislature, the Seimas, passed a bill that will require all gambling advertisements to include a warning about gambling-related harm from 1 July.

The bill is an amendment to Article 10 of the country’s gambling laws and was proposed by Mykolas Majauskas of the Homeland Union Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party. It was passed by consensus after no objections were raised at its first reading.