Online gambling leads Swedish Q1 turnover as market shrinks 1%

Preliminary results for Sweden’s gambling market have revealed a slight drop in Q1 turnover compared to the previous corresponding quarter.

Licensed operators saw a total of SEK 6.6bn (£512m) being staked in the three months ending March, representing a 0.9% drop from the SEK 6.7bn in Q1 2024.

Broken down in segments, online betting and gaming led the turnover pack with a total volume of SEK 4.3bn. This is historically the segment which customers engage the most with, averaging more than SEK 4bn throughout 2024.

Turnover from the state lottery, run by state operator Svenska Spel, came in second with a total volume of SEK 1.3bn. This was on par with the YoY quarterly average, but noticeably behind last year’s record of SEK 1.7bn in Q4 – most likely driven by the Christmas holiday period.

Charity lotteries took the third spot with a total turnover of SEK 886m. Again, the record for that was achieved during 2024’s Christmas season, capped at SEK 1.1bn.

Looking at the bottom half of the table, commercial land-based gambling like restaurant casinos brought it a total of SEK 52m. This follows an upwards trend across Q3 and Q4 in 2024, with the segment raking in SEK 65m and SEK 66m in both quarters respectively.

Hall bingo came in at SEK 49m in Q1 2025, averaging the same amount throughout 2024.

Lastly, and expectedly, the least turnover in Q1 was contributed by Casino Cosmopol at SEK 26m.

The state-owned casino is currently going through a privatisation process, with one last venue in Stockholm still operational after a gradual close down was initiated due to the franchise struggling to rebounce after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In relation to the total number of people who used the services of the national problem gambling scheme, Spelpaus.se, the regulator Spelinspektionen confirmed that 125,000 people have self-excluded throughout Q1 – a 3.5% increase from the previous quarter.