Spain’s Gross Gambling Revenue Grows in Q1
Spain has finally released data from the first quarter of the year, which shows its gross gambling revenue (GGR) has increased by 10.2% since the same period in 2020. The Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), the national gambling regulator in Spain, offered additional figures to show growth across the industry in this time period.
Casino spending has made up 41.4% of Spain’s Q1 2021 GGR, despite lockdown restrictions. ©Carl Raw/Unsplash
Q1 2021: Growth in Gambling Despite Economic Downturn
Spain’s GGR for Q1 2021 was €240.1 million total, which is a 10.2% increase compared to Q1 2020 and a 3.8% from the last quarter of 2020. This is an impressive shift compared to the country’s general economic growth in the beginning of 2021, which saw contractions due to increased restrictions around the Covid-19 pandemic.
Compared to the GDP, which shrank by 0.5% from the previous quarter, and consumer spending (down 1%), the GGR grew in myriad ways. The DGOJ shared that player spending and withdraws were up 6.1% and 6.4%. New registered accounts for players grew 7.9% to a total of 422,533, while the total monthly average was 1.1 million active gaming accounts, which is up 22.7% from the same time in 2020.
This is likely due to Spain’s progressive online gambling industry. Online gambling is nationally-regulated in Spain and offered through licensed providers. It has been a boon for players of all kinds — from slot fans to poker players, fans of other table games and also sports betting — who have been able to safely play online during Spain’s lockdowns.
Recent partnerships in Spain like that between software provider Habanero and casino platform 888casino have brought even further online gaming access to the country, in the form of new slot titles.
During this quarter, it is reported that Spain had 80 licensed gaming operators. 51 are casino operators and 44 offer sports betting. Nine are associated with poker, three with bingo, and two are solely prize draws.
A Closer Look at the Numbers
Out of the total GGR for Q1 2021, sports betting accounted for €110.3 million (45.6%). This is a decrease from Q1 2020, probably due to restrictions on sports events because of Covid-19, but still up from Q4 2020 by 6.5%.
Despite Spain’s strict second lockdown, casino play made up 41.4% of Q1’s GGR. That represents an increase of 28.3% from Q1 2020. Poker brought in €25 million, and bingo represented €3.6 million of the GGR. These did not shift majorly from the previous year.
Spain’s lottery, the Lotería Nacional, is one of the most popular forms of gambling available to citizens, and Spain’s Christmas Lottery has been titled the largest in the world, so it is not a surprise that prize draws brought in €1.7 million this quarter.
The GGR figures include not only spend on gaming but also in other parts of the industry, including marketing costs. Marketing costs for this quarter were €148.4 million, including a reported €71.5 million of advertising costs, €56 million in promotions, €12.4 million of affiliate marketing and €8.5 million in sponsorship deals.
While these are large figures, overall marketing spend decreased by 1.7% from the previous quarter.
The online gambling provider BtoBet also recently released a report about Spain’s online gambling industry, which used DGOJ data to explore why the industry has flourished even amid difficult lockdown restrictions and virus-related economic pressure.
Spain’s Lockdown Measures
Following the trend of most of its European neighbors, Spain entered a first lockdown on March 14, 2020, to curb the effects of the Covid-19 virus. Due to a high infection rate and death toll, the lockdown lasted until June 21, 2020. During that time all “non-essential” businesses closed and workers were ordered to work from home wherever possible. This of course also affected land-based casino business.
Increased case numbers led to some cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Zaragoza imposing additional restrictions in July 2020.
Following a wave of new cases across the European continent, Spain again followed suit of other EU countries and introduced new health and safety measures, including a national curfew, in October 2020. Aside from limiting gambling for citizens of Spain, lockdown measures also severely affected tourism, which of course also reduced casino visitation and spend during the year.
As of June 2021, Spain’s Covid-19 forecast has improved drastically. Shops, restaurants, bars and cultural institutions are open, with mandatory face masks, and have long opening hours again. Beginning on June 7, 2021, Spain allowed vaccinated tourists to enter. They recently lifted vaccination requirements for US tourists. All in all, this points towards an increased ability to gamble across Spanish venues in the summer, though it will be some time before Q2 and Q3 GGR data is available from the DGOJ.
Angel Talavera, head of European economics at Oxford Economics, told Focus Economics:
“As the health situation improves and the vaccination process gathers speed, we anticipate a recovery to start in Q2 and a more marked rise in Q3, once a larger number of restrictions can be rolled back, but the summer season will be key to determine the magnitude of the rebound. Prospects for H2 and beyond will also be boosted by a large amount of fiscal stimulus once EU funding starts to be deployed.”
