Spanish Q4 revenues rise 11% as egaming and poker growth reaches double-digits
Rises reported in all verticals as shared liquidity and increased ad spend impact revenues
Revenues from the Spanish online gaming market grew 10.7% year-on-year during Q4 2018, according to the latest market figures from the regulator.
In its final report for the year, Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) confirmed gross gaming revenues of €189.4m (£165.8m) were recorded during the three months ending December 2018.
Online casino and poker proved to be the big winners during the quarter, with revenues from online casino rising 32.6% YoY in Q4 to €64.7m (£56.7m), while online poker revenues jumped 36.5% to €21m during Q4.
Earlier this month, regulators from Spain, France and Portugal hailed the online poker shared liquidity agreement as having a positive effect on both revenues and player participation across the three member states.
However, gross gambling revenues from online sports betting dropped 2.1% YoY to €99.4m during Q4 2018 from the €102m reported during the same period of 2017.
Bingo revenues increased by 12% Yoy during the quarter, rising to €3.5m from a previous Q4 2017 high of €3.1m.
Marketing spend by gambling companies increased to €49.8m during Q4 2018, a rise of 59.25% on the €31.2m reported during the same period of 2017.
In October, the Spanish government announced it would introduce sweeping changes to current advertising laws later this year in an effort to reduce problem gambling rates.
The law changes would bring the current advertising rules for gambling in line with those of tobacco and alcohol advertising, severely reducing the amount of online and TV ads that gambling companies are able to air in Spain.