A Look At Scandinavian-Based Gambling And Poker Market Movements

Scandinavia is home to some of the biggest gambling operators in Europe. While the largest market share is on the lottery, as is the trend almost everywhere, the world of online gambling and poker both hold huge shares in the Scandinavian gambling landscape.

In Sweden alone, according to an observation made by Svenska Spel, a Swedish operator, the estimated gambling revenue of 2014 was around $2.4 billion. This is actually a decline from previous years, attributed to Sweden’s tightening of gambling regulations to tackle the issue of addiction.

Not all companies are feeling this decline though. Betsson, one of the largest casino and sportsbook operators in Europe, have seen a 2014 full year revenue increase of 23 percent. This takes their revenue to $355 million for the year. With mobile betting accounting for almost 25 percent of all revenue.

Despite this growth, Betsson reported a 20 percent ($2.3 million) profit loss in their poker revenue, reason being that there is “a continued decreased level of activity in poker networks” according to the Betsson market. The loss was obviously outweighed by the acquisition of Oranje and Kroon casinos.

This is in amazing contrast compared to the reports of Betsson’s poker revenue from 2013, when Card Player was reporting an 11-percent growth of poker revenue. With said growth attributed to Betsson’s joining of the Microgaming network.

On the flip-side to growth, Svenska Spel’s Q1 saw a fall in land-based revenue of 4.7 percent. But a growth of 5.5 percent in online based revenue, with mobile revenue growing by over 50 percent in said quarter. Svenska Spel attributed their short growth to international online bookmakers competition.

Lennart Kall, the CEO of Svenska Spel, made a mention of the responsible gaming measures they’ve implemented also impacting their overall revenue. He could be quoted saying, “Competition is tougher than ever. This, combined with the responsible gaming measures we introduced last year, means we did not manage to keep the growth rate required to maintain our market share”.

Svenska Spel are pushing to bring in more online income in the coming months, in hopes that it’ll revive their falling revenue. However with the tight regulations of Sweden, this could take a while before it can come to fruition.

In similar news, Betsson has also expanded. They acquired Georgian operator Europe-Bet. In an $85 million deal. Meaning Betsson has explosively made its way into the Georgian market, with Europe-Bet already having owned 30 percent of the market share in Georgia.

It seems that the Scandinavian gambling market is in a time of flux. With two of the biggest companies in Scandinavia reporting very different rates of growth and loss. It’ll certainly be interesting to see what insight the next quarterly report provides us with.

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