SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Swedish betting and gaming industry’s post-lockdown recovery has continued in the first quarter of the year, as total revenue reached SEK 6.5 billion (€6.2m).
A 6% increase on Q1 2021, the quarter saw Sweden’s 66 licensed sports betting and casino operators collect wagering revenue of SEK 4.1 billion (€392m), a rise of 4% on the previous year according to the Spelinkspektionen’s preliminary results.
Although remaining fairly consistent with Q4 2021, sports betting revenue did decline slightly between the separate three month periods – a continuation of a trend which saw Sweden’s betting market close 2021 with revenue of SEK 3.92 billion (€375.9m) in comparison to SEK 4.19bn (€401m).
Revenue for state lottery and slot machine games, on the other hand, declined by 12.5% from the final quarter of the previous year, falling from SEK 1.6 billion (€1.6m) to SEK 1.2 billion (€114m).
The same can be said of state-backed casino operator Casino Cosmopol, which saw its revenue decline from SEK 144 million (€13.7m) to SEK 103 million (€9.8m), a decrease of 28%.
However, this still marked a substantial recovery for state-backed casino games, which generated zero revenue during the first quarter of 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Land-based casinos also recorded a heavy increase on Q1 2021 figures, with revenue increasing by 87% from SEK 5 million (€470,000) to SEK 39 million (€3.7m), although also falling by 37% on Q4 2021.
Lastly, national lottery sales fell by 3% to SEK 863 million (€83.7m) on the 2021 closing figure of SEK 889 million (€85.2m), but remained fairly stable on the previous year’s figure of SEK 860 million (€82.4m).
The Swedish Gambling Inspectorate also detailed that the number of self-excluded customers also increased on the previous quarter by 6% to over 3,000, with the total number of bettors in the Swedish market standing at 6.4 million.
