The Spanish online gambling is on the move and to anyone’s surprise, Spain registered its second quarter of 2024 gross gambling revenue of €346.3 million. Specifically, the figure is 11% higher as a result of the ongoing growth of the digital gambling industry in Spain throughout the analyzed period compared to the data of the previous year.
The casino segment became the major source of the revenues with 49.6% of the Q2 GGR. This sector rose by 14.6% as compared to the same period in 2023 and indicates the general trend that has emerged in Spain with Spanish players leaning more towards online casino games. In relation to the assessment of the casino segment, it can be said that slots were the best performing games, with GGR up 19.5 yoy.
This was further complemented by normal operation of sports betting, revenues of €145, 5m; 9.1% yy. However, the picture of sports betting as a segment indicated some interesting dynamics of consumers’ choices. In-play betting increased 5.8% year-on-year. However, football pre-match betting decreased – by 10.3% year-on-year. This change points to the fact that Spanish bettors are progressively shifting their attention from the conventional manner of betting to live betting.
However, other types of bets, including horse racing, recorded an impressive increase of 36.6%, showing that consumers’ interest is not limited to football alone in executing their sports betting interest. This trend suggests that operators with many different types of bets besides football may find new opportunities in the Spanish market.
The segment of online poker declined by a mere 0.8%, with overall revenues for Q2 valued at €25.6m. This dip was further supplemented by the fact that it had declined from the previous quarter by 10.2%. However, the sector still recorded a positive variation rate of 6.2 % compared with the year 2022 which indicates that despite the encounters some challenges, the online poker comprises a strong part of the Spain online gambling market.
The bingo segment recorded only 1.9% upward trend from the year ago level, but showed a sharper 13.9% decline from the opening quarter of the year. These, or rather these mixed results imply that there is a continuous need for innovation as far as the offerings for the Spanish side of the online gambling sector is concerned as far as the preferences of Europes consumers are concerned.
However, one aspect that deserves to be highlighted after comparing the data at the two markets is that the marketing expenses have greatly improved. Total marketing expenditure in the region stood at €120.2 million in Q2, from €97.6 million posted in the same period of last year, a 22.5% y-o-y increase. The increase of marketing spend to achieve the same result could be due to a variety of reasons, which may include the recent liberalization of the advertisement restrictions by the Spanish Supreme Court. After this decision, operators are now able to offer enticements to the players to get them to play, leading to more competition in the market.
These findings show that promotional expenditure and advertising were the biggest portions of this marketing budget, which supports the industry’s promotional efforts with numerous promotional media. There has been a step-up in marketing in the last few months as operators vie for market share, and it is expected that this will drive market expansion in the subsequent quarter.
Opinion of the players also shows increased interest in online gambling in Spain as a particular aspect of the country’s economic evolution. The total amount deposited by the players was €1.09 billion, which is 15.9% more than the same four months in 2023. The portable games user accounts reached an active number of one point four million, which marks the growth of both the year before and the opening quarter year of 2023. A similar trend was exhibited by a fantastic year-on-year increase in new game account generation at 446,586, up from 305,060 in the previous year. These numbers point to further consumer interest in digital gaming in Spain and point out that these industries remain very much in demand.
This growth is due to an improved performance in the Spanish market, which is still experiencing continuous changes in the regulatory structure and governmental attention. Problems that arise from such factors remain to be tackled, yet the industry continues to expand; this is proof of its stability and the need for the services offered by online gambling in Spain.
In the process of its development, the saturation and subsequent shifts in consumers’ tastes, regulatory policies, and emerging technological trends all mandate careful attention as the industry continues to advance. New types of bets focus on live betting on sports events, and the lasting popularity of casino games all mean that operators can continue to improve their propositions and invest in the development of their market share.
In future, it is seen that the Spanish online gambling is all set to expand its scale in the global market. But to achieve the goal, operators will need to address the question of sustainable growth, within the framework of responsible gambling. This is a highly competitive industry, and there continues to be rigid regulation; therefore, agility and the understanding of the customer needs will be central to performance in this domain.
