Bundesliga return offers May boost for German betting market

German bookmakers and affiliates have reported a drastic increase in business after the Bundesliga returned following an eight week hiatus.

Affiliate company Leadstar Media reported that its MyWettbonus.de brand had recorded a 100% increase in business since football resumed. Meanwhile, searches for ‘sportwetten’ – the German for ‘sports betting’ – were 2.5x higher in May than in the middle of April.

Leadstar Media also revealed that searches for ‘Wettbonus’ (bookmaker bonus) and ‘Wettanbieter’ (bookmakers) had also increased since April.

Meanwhile, international broadcasters have recorded record figures for viewers, with the Dortmund-Schalke derby attracting an audience of 203,000 on Fox Sports 1 in the Netherlands – which is more than double the usual figure for Bundesliga matches shown on the channel.

But despite the positive increases, the value for affiliates from the German sports betting market is expected to shrink, with the uptake in activity following the resumption of live football not expected to mitigate the losses experienced during the lockdown.

In fact, the market for gambling and sports betting in Austria is likely to be one of the major losers in the shutdown in 2020.

That’s according to data from market research institute Industry Radar, who authored a study predicting that the country’s gross gaming revenue could shrink by 16% to €1.62 billion for 2020.

The same research suggested that GGR for the sports betting industry in Austria will drop by 45% to €145 million, with no improvements expected until Autumn.