Spain iGaming Dashboard – Q2 2020
Despite gambling advertising being restricted to the hours of 1AM to 5AM for almost the entire quarter, at €208.9m igaming GGR was down just 4% on the previous quarter and up 17% on the second quarter of last year.
The performance was especially impressive given the lack of sports available to bet on during the period thanks to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Though sports betting revenues fell dramatically in April and May, to €13.9m and €19.7m, respectively, they rebounded strongly to €34.6m in June.
In fact, June’s betting GGR represented a 39% rise on the same month the previous year.
It appears that Spain’s bettors switched verticals during the sporting downtime, with casino and poker seeing significant rises during the quarter.
As was the case in many other jurisdictions, the poker vertical seemed to be of particular appeal to bored sports punters, with poker revenues up 58% on Q1 and 97% on Q2 2019.
Casino revenues also rose, by 16% on Q1 and 24.5% on Q2 2019. The change in player preferences saw casino rise to take 44.79% of the overall online gambling market, with betting and poker at 32.63% and 18.29%, respectively.
But while revenue figures may have pointed towards a market holding steady despite the government’s advertising crackdown, when it comes to player numbers the picture was far less rosy.
The number of active players in the quarter was down 29.4% on a quarter-on-quarter basis and 25.3% on a year-on-year basis.
More worryingly, the number of players who registered during the quarter had more than halved since Q1 and was also down 41.5% on the second quarter of last year.
In May just 84,021 players registered, the lowest monthly total for more than four years.
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 several US states, including New Jersey in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard.
European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure is a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.