SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Swedish gambling inspectorate, Spelinspektionen, has reported that licensed gambling firms recorded total sales (player revenues minus winnings) of SEK 6.2 billion (€615m) during Q1 2021.
The figure represents a 5% increase on corresponding Q1 2020 results, which saw Swedish licensed gambling sales total SEK 5.9 billion (€580m).
Monitoring 101 licensed incumbents, of which 71 are licensed for B2C betting and online gambling, Spelinspektionen observed that Swedish web-based gaming and betting sales totalled SEK 3.9 billion – up 7.7% on Q1 2020 results of SEK 3.65 billion.
Despite recording growth, Spelinspektionen reported that Q1 B2C sales results were down on consecutive 2020 Q4 results, which saw Swedish online gambling incumbents generate sales of SEK 4.1 billion – the record quarter since it started monitoring performance of Sweden’s re-regulated online gambling space.
However, state lottery and slot games made some inroads from the first quarter of 2020, rising from SEK 1.1 billion to SEK 1.4 billion, although this was still below the Q4 2020 figure of SEK 1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, land-based commercial gaming earnings from restaurant casino venues also rose from SEK 6 million to SEK 52 million, whilst hall bingo and ‘games for public benefit’ also experienced an increase from SEK 44 million to SEK 52 million.
Additional figures show that almost 63,000 people suspended themselves from gambling websites using Spelpaus.se, Spelinspektionen’s self-exclusion scheme first launched in November 2020.
This represented an increase of just over 6% when compared with Q1 2020 figures, and by mid-May the total number of self-excluded bettors had increased to almost 64,000.
In its official statement, Spelinspektionen did however acknowledge that the figures included are preliminary and largely based on information from the Swedish Tax Agency on decided gambling tax.
Further to market reports, this morning Spelinspektionen confirmed that its COVID ‘temporary online gambling controls’ would be maintained until 14 November.
The inspectorate will continue to enforce that all licensed online casino maintain a EK5,000 (€500) weekly deposit cap – which the agency has imposed since April 2020.
