Poll: Can Scandinavian operators challenge the Western European elite?

In their most recent financial results, three of Scandinavia’s largest egaming operators pledged a commitment to expand into Western Europe after reducing reliance on their native Nordic markets.

Betsson‘s gross B2C profits from the Nordics now make up 73% of the business compared to 85% last year, while Unibet reported a substantial 46% year-on-year growth in Q3 revenues from Western Europe, including 120% in sports betting, while revenues from the Nordics decreased 4% year-on-year.

Last week, Mr Green CEO Mikael Pawlo also said it was “strategically important” for the online casino operator to move away from its core Nordic markets and into Western and Central Europe with revenues from the former region down almost nine percentage points to 53.6% in Q3.

Up against dominant operators such as bet365, William Hill and Sky Bet, the UK will likely prove a trickier market to navigate for Nordic operators despite Unibet previously announcing it was confident of success.

The Stockholm-listed operator’s CEO Henrik Tjärnström told eGaming Review last year it was targeting a top-five position in the UK sports betting market with its Kambi-managed sportsbook and revenues from the country doubled year-on-year last quarter.

However, newly regulated territories arguably provide the biggest opportunity for Western European expansion with the Netherlands the next big market to liberalise with a launch expected in either late 2015 or 2016.

Betsson has a strong position in the market via the acquisition of its Netherlands-facing casino brands Oranje and Kroon although Unibet CEO Tjärnström said he was “not losing any sleep” over the prospect of Betsson challenging his company’s market leading position in the country.

Elsewhere, a regulated Portuguese online gambling market also took a step closer this year after the country’s parliament gave the green light to proposals which would bring to an end its current state-owned monopolised system and Betsson has since purchased Portugal-facing Dhoze.com for an undisclosed fee.

Operators from the UK and Ireland have already carved out market-leading positions in markets such as Italy and Spain and are sure to have one eye on newly regulated markets in Western Europe

With this in mind, for this week’s poll eGR asks whether you feel Scandinavian operators are well placed to face off competition from such firms in the region’s new markets.

Have your say on the right-hand side of the page.