Spain GGR up 12% in Q1 2020 as casino revenue lifts numbers

Spain’s online gambling revenue (GGR) rose by 12.47% year-on-year in Q1 2020 to reach €217.9m (£195m), according to the regulator’s latest figures.

The DGOJ revealed sports betting accounted for the largest share of Spanish market revenue during the quarter, with Q1 revenue hitting €110.6m (£99m), producing 50% of total GGR for the period.

Sports betting revenue rose 8.65% from the same period in 2019, when the figure finalised at €101.8m.

Online casino revenue accounted for 35% of Spanish GGR during Q1 as revenue reached €77.5m (£69.3m), representing a 17% rise on last year.

Poker revenue, which made up just over 11% of Spanish GGR during the quarter, increased by 13% to €24.2m (£21.6m), a rise due in part to a 22% quarter-on-quarter uptick in tournament play.

In a marked change from Q4, where revenue fell by 16%, online bingo revenue climbed by double digits during Q1 (14.6%) to €3.69m (£3.3m), corresponding to just under 2% of total GGR.

Addressing the results, Spanish gaming analyst Eduardo Morales Hermo highlighted the positive numbers but cited the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Spanish revenue in mid-March.

“The big impact shall be reflected in Q2 2020 when we will have had three full months of reduced sports betting activity and where we will see a decline caused by the government’s advertising and promotion restrictive measures and the lack of sports events,” said Morales Hermo.

The monthly average number of new accounts rose by 5% annually during Q1 2020 to 289,340, while active accounts remained flat at 911,218 during the quarter.

Marketing spend rose sharply during the first three months of 2020, increasing by 28% year-on-year to €118.2m (£105.8m).

The biggest increase was in spend on bonus promotions, up by 46%, and on advertising, which jumped by more than 24% annually. Marketing spend on sponsorships increased by 23% year-on-year in Q1 to just over €6m (£5.3m).

Yesterday, the Spanish government announced new draft legislation aiming to ban sponsorships of sports clubs including La Liga teams by gambling operators.

Under the new standards, all kit, stadium and promotional adverts by operators would be banned. In addition, the pre-Covid-19 lockdown measure restricting all ads to between 1am to 5am is set to be enforced permanently across television, radio and online media.

“The new draft of the decree law will replicate and worsen the measures taken during the pandemic state of alarm period will certainly impact negatively the performance of the regulated online gaming and betting market,” said Morales Hermo.

“It will undoubtedly transfer a lot of the market to the unlicensed offshore operators if the final decree is not modified to allow marketing activities natural to a regulated online gaming and betting market to take place,” he added.