Santa Casa-backed Placard launches in Portugal
Portugal has a 13th online sports betting operator after Santa Casa-backed Placard.pt went live just in time for the FIFA World Cup.
SAS Social Betting, Gaming and Gambling Online, in which lottery firm Santa Casa has a majority stake, was awarded a licence by the Portuguese authorities last Friday. Placard.pt went live on Monday and offers betting on 22 sports.
“Our objective is to operate in this regulated market, to have a good service of games for users of the platform, that this is intuitive and reliable,” said Paulo Calado, SAS director.
“The company is also innovative in the sense that the dividends, the financial results, will be all of them, by the nature and the ends of its shareholders, channelled to social causes.”
Online gambling was legalised in Portugal in 2015, and since then gross revenues of €208m ($245m) have been generated. More than half of this came from sports betting, with €82m from casino.
The Regulation and Inspection Services of Games (SRIJ) said another 11 licences are currently being processed, and that no applications have ever been rejected.
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