Sports betting tops in Spanish online gambling

Annual statistics quoted at a recent meeting in Brussels by Juan Espinosa, chief of the Spanish regulator Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego reveal that sports betting still rules in the online environment, with 60 percent of Spanish internet and mobile punters wagering on sports events.

Other interesting demographics included a total online gambling population of almost 825,000, with 87 percent being of the male gender and between the ages of 18 and 45.

Despite this, the highest revenues came from older age brackets; online punters in the 46 to 55 year bracket had an average spend per head of Euro 448 in 2014, compared to players aged between 18 and 25, who on average spent only Euro64. The middle age range of player spent around Euro 243 on average during the year.

In gender terms, the female minority spent on average Euro 123, a figure significantly lower than their male counterparts who wagered Euro 261 on average during the twelve month period.

Online poker proved popular despite international downward trends, and accounted for almost 45 percent of Spanish online action. Internet casinos attracted 20.4 percent of online revenues, although that figure is skewed by the fact that the Spanish regulator only permitted slots action in the summer of 2014 – a more accurate picture should emerge in the 2015 statistics.

Spain’s overall land and online gambling market attracted wagers totalling Euro 24 billion in 2014, marginally up from the preceding year. It’s a far cry from the 2008 heyday of 2008 when wagering totalled over Euro 32 billion, but still constitutes 2.5 percent of Spain’s gross domestic product.

In 2014 the industry as a whole employed 76,000 Spaniards.