Swedish gaming market sees online decline as legislation nears
Regulated market sees marginal growth in core products with online casino and poker in decline
Sweden’s Lotteriinspektionen has revealed that its regulated gambling market has seen revenues rise SEK107m (£10.5m) to SEK10bn in the first quarter of 2013, with draft egaming legislation likely to be submitted to the country’s parliament in June this year.
Monopoly operator Svenska Spel maintained the largest share of the country’s gambling market, generating total revenues of SEK5.77bn in Q1 “ though this represents a year-on-year increase of less than 1%.
‘Number games’ products including bingo, lotto and keno proved to be the best-performing vertical, with revenues up 9.2% on 2012, marking the vertical’s strongest performance since the mid-1980s.
Online casino and poker, however, both experienced decline. Casino saw income drop 7.2% year-on-year, while poker fared even worse, falling 13.8% from 2012’s Q1 takings.
The country’s horse racing business ATG also struggled in the first three months of the year, declining by 13.9% from SEK119m to SEK2.88bn. Its V75 betting game accounted for over SEK1bn of the operator’s revenue, making it the second-largest online gambling product available in the regulated market after number games.
The regulatory body’s director general HÃ¥kan Hallstedt admitted the market had only experienced “moderate growth” adding that the quarterly revenues showed “clear changes in buyer behaviour”.
The results come after Betsson CEO Magnus Silfverberg revealed he expected the Swedish Ministry of Finance to submit draft legislation to the country’s parliament in June this year. This follows a pledge by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and minister for financial markets Peter Norman to act on the findings of a report into the country’s egaming market, published by the National Audit Office (Riksrevisionen) in June last year.
Silverberg, as chairman of operator association Branschforeningen for Onlinspel (BOS), has called for a tax rate of no higher than 10% on gross gaming revenues (GGR), which he claimed would double tax income in the market. He argued that the lower rate would encourage more operators to apply for a licence, and give the government greater control over the industry, which currently sees more than half of GGR go to unlicensed operators.