Despite the presence of particularly high taxes, there has been a positive balance sheet in the Portuguese online gaming market. This is a fairly recent sector, as we are going to explain to you, and which nevertheless remains very competitive.

The Portuguese Online Gambling Market

As surprising as it may seem, due to its rather late arrival in the online gambling sector, the Portuguese online gambling market had a year-end on the hats of wheels. While it had only been legalized since May 2016, the sector had a rather satisfactory 2017, despite the really high level of taxes. There are currently 7 game operators who operate in this market for the moment. But you can imagine that others could of course arrive very soon for 2018. So what is the area that is most successful with Portuguese players? Well, let’s see it together now.

Bets In Mind

Sports betting is in fact the top favorite games, followed very closely by online casinos. And it is the Serviço Regulaçao e Inspeçao de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal, the Portuguese regulator, which communicated the results this week of 2017. It will then confirm at the same time the upward trend observed throughout the year. The report reveals that the 4th quarter was rather convincing. We find in fact an increase of € 10 million compared to the same period in 2016. But that’s not all since this good news will be added to another observation of an increase of € 7 million over the previous quarter. . We can therefore learn that all the operators generated € 36.5 million over the last 3 months of the year.

A Year Concluded With A Good Turnover

These increases therefore finally allow this market to conclude the year honorably, with an overall turnover of € 122.6 million. But we must not forget that Portugal has very recently legalized online sports betting, online casinos and poker. A legalization which is not trivial since, as is the case on the French market where operators are taxed on the PBJ, the government is particularly greedy. And we can easily see that the latter does not hesitate to take a good part of the activity, by collecting for example no less than € 54.3 million over the past year. What to be satisfied with having finally opened and ceded rights to online games.

But as we specified to you a little above, and identical to the market of our dear French neighbors, it is sports betting that turns out to be the engine of this industry and especially of this colossal turnover. . We end up with a share of 55.5% of turnover (€ 68.1 million). Portugal obliges, it is also the football which remains the sport most appreciated by the online punters with approximately 75% of the bets, followed by tennis and finally basketball.

With regard to online casinos and their games, including poker, the vertical of virtual gaming establishments generated nearly € 55 million. An explicit figure which proves the interest shown by players for these games and which proves the sudden popularity of this activity. Regarding this sector, it is still the slot machines that remain the queens, with 45% of turnover, followed by cash game poker which will then generate almost 20 million euros on its own. There are also other games that have won, like many other countries, a resounding success such as French roulette just behind (19.2%), blackjack (9.2%) and finally poker tournaments ( 6.7%).