The return of sporting events saw the market shares of the major verticals shift back towards pre-Covid levels in Spain’s online market in the third quarter of last year. As both domestic and international football leagues resumed, punters’ attention turned towards betting, leading to the vertical regaining its position as the largest in the Spanish market.
But despite rebounding strongly on a quarter-on-quarter basis to pull in revenues of €85.1m, betting GGR remained significantly down on a year-on-year basis, registering a 15.5% drop.
The situation was reversed in casino, however, with the market’s second largest vertical experiencing a 10.3% quarter-on-quarter fall but a 26% year-on-year increase with revenues of €83.9m.
During the peak of the first Covid-19 wave and with most sporting events cancelled, casino had performed strongly in Spain, so much so that it overtook betting as the vertical with the largest market share in the second quarter.
The return of sporting events saw the market shares of the major verticals shift back towards pre-Covid levels in Spain’s online market in the third quarter of last year.
As both domestic and international football leagues resumed, punters’ attention turned towards betting, leading to the vertical regaining its position as the largest in the Spanish market.
But despite rebounding strongly on a quarter-on-quarter basis to pull in revenues of €85.1m, betting GGR remained significantly down on a year-on-year basis, registering a 15.5% drop.
The situation was reversed in casino, however, with the market’s second largest vertical experiencing a 10.3% quarter-on-quarter fall but a 26% year-on-year increase with revenues of €83.9m.
During the peak of the first Covid-19 wave and with most sporting events cancelled, casino had performed strongly in Spain, so much so that it overtook betting as the vertical with the largest market share in the second quarter.
Similarly, as was the case in many other jurisdictions, poker also surged during the period, with revenues up almost 100% during the second quarter.
However, it appears many players were quick to abandon their substitute games once sports came back online and poker also suffered a large year-on-year fall in the third quarter.
With revenues of €23m, poker revenues were down almost 40% on the second quarter. But the quarterly total did represent a 12.3% increase on the same period the previous year, so there’s a possibility some of the vertical’s gains due to Covid-19 may prove permanent.
The much smaller vertical of bingo also gained during the pandemic, but as with poker, revenues here also dropped off in the third quarter. But despite being down 22.9% on the previous quarter, bingo GGR remained up 22.6% on a year-on-year basis.
The lifting of the pandemic-induced temporary advertising restrictions appeared to have an impact on player numbers during the third quarter. After falling significantly in the second quarter, when marketing was heavily restricted, numbers rebounded strongly during Q3.
This was particularly evident in new player registrations, which were up an enormous 139.4% on a quarter-on-quarter basis, as well as having risen 30.2% year-on-year.
The number of active players was up 37.1% on a quarter-on-quarter basis, though was flat on the same period the previous year.
Ficom Leisure also provides exclusive monthly estimates on the Italian online market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard, including operator market shares across casino, sports betting and poker.