Portugese igaming revenue grows to €54.1m in Q3
The Portuguese gambling regulator, Serviço Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal (SRIJ), has revealed record online revenue for the seventh quarter in a row, thanks to casino and sports betting growth.
The total of €54.1m (£45.2m/$60.3m), up from €48.3m in the second quarter and a 39.1% year-on-year rise, was generated by 11 businesses, which held a total of 18 licences by the end of September – up from two operators in the corresponding period in 2018.
A total of €23.6m was raised in online gambling tax (IEJO) in the third quarter, up by €6.4m in relation to the same period the previous year.
Casino revenue improved from €25.3m to €28.2m quarter-on-quarter – an increase of €8.8m on Q3 of 2018.
Online sports betting revenues reached €25.9m in Q3, an increase of €6.4m on the same period in 2018 and up from a total of €23m in the previous quarter.
Portuguese sports bettors wagered a total of €114m in the quarter – slightly up on the second quarter figure of €112.1m, but down from the record total of €131.3m posted in the first three months of the year. More than three-quarters of the total amount wagered (77.53%) was on football.
There was a sharp quarterly rise in the total spent at casinos, up from €699.8m between April and June to €741.5m between July and September.
There was also a significant quarter-on-quarter increase in the number of newly registered online gamblers to a new record of 149,000, up from 102,200 in the second quarter of 2019 and 125,200 in the first quarter of the year. During Q3 of 2019, a total of 354,100 people placed bets online.
However, in spite of the significant increases across all of the key metrics, Portugal’s real gambling figures across unlicensed as well as registered websites are likely to be considerably higher.
In October, a survey commissioned by the Portuguese Association of Online Gambling and Gambling (APAJO) found that 56% of gamblers continue to bet with unlicensed as well as licensed operators more than three years after legal online gambling was introduced.