Spain’s online gambling market floats all boats in Q4, even poker

Spain’s regulated online gambling market reported gains across all major verticals – yes, even poker – in the final quarter of 2017.

Figures released Monday by Spanish gaming regulator Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ) show Spanish-licensed online operators generated revenue of €173.3m in the three months ending December 31, 2017. The figure represents a 38% improvement over Q4 2016 and is 23.5% higher than Q3 2017’s total.

Active customer ranks improved nearly 12% year-on-year to over 676k, while customer deposits soared by 53.2% to €495.5m. These gains came despite operators cutting their Q4 advertising spending by 1.4% to €31.3m. However, bonus offers to customers were up 13.1% year-on-year to €21m, while affiliate marketing expenses jumped 38.6% to €7.5m and sponsorship expenses more than doubled to €3.15m.

The online casino vertical handily usurped the online turnover crown from sports betting in Q4. Casino spending topped €1.77b in Q4, a year-on-year improvement of nearly 48%, which gave the casino vertical a 49.9% share of all turnover, while sports betting’s €1.34b (+5.2%) relegated it to second place with a 37.7% share.