Swedish gambling market continues to prosper

Sweden’s general gambling market continues to prosper, according to the latest information from regulator Lotteriinspektionen, which reported an overall 5 percent rise in GGR over the nine months January to September 2016 in an update this week.

GGR from gambling overall in the Nordic nation reached SEK 16.2 billion, with the dominant Svenska Spel delivering 40 percent of national revenue at SEK 6.5 billion, made up of terrestrial operations (down 3 percent at SEK 5.17 billion) and online (up 12 percent at SEK 1.38 billion).

Lotteriinspektionen estimates that revenue garnered by international companies from Swedish online punters increased by 16 percent to around SEK 3.66 billion or 23 percent of the official online market.

More accurate numbers based on Swedish-licensed entities included online revenue at the Postcode Lottery down alarmingly 37 percent, whilst the People’s Game Lottery fared better with just a 4 percent dip in online GGR.

The IOGT-NTO Lottery and the ATG horseracing enterprise both delivered positive revenues, up 12 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Retail lottery sales generally continued to be significantly greater than those from online operations, with the exception of ATG, which reported online revenue of SEK1.5 billion vs. retail revenue of SEK 1.4 billion.

From a third quarter perspective, Svenska Spel underperformed, posting revenue down 1.5 y-o-y at SEK 2.15 billion and profits 1.6 percent less at SEK 1.2 billion.

The bright spot in the company’s Q3-2016 report was mobile, which created 55 percent more wagers thanks to a new app and the Euro 2016 football championships. The app was credited with creating over 160,000 new sign-ups.

Interestingly, the Svenska Spel quarterly revealed that the company intends to offer eSports and daily fantasy sports betting, subject to government and regulatory approval.

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