Portuguese Online Gambling Thrives Thanks to Growing Revenues and Safer Gambling

While Portugal is a relatively small country, its online gambling industry has shown incredible potential. Since its launch in 2017, both the online casino and sports betting verticals have shown continued growth, and the regulatory body is actively engaging in safer gambling campaigns.

Join us as we look at industry stats provided by Portugal’s Gaming Regulation and Inspection Service (SRIJ), safer gambling news, and an exciting new partnership.

 A Resilient and Growing Marketplace

Portuguese gamblers have shown an affinity for online games of chance, according to the Q1 2023 stats released by the SRIJ. Despite sports betting being available to local gamblers for many more years than online casino games, the current market is split 56.4% to 43.6% in favour of casinos.

This increased player interest is reflected in the account data. According to the SRIJ, new account registrations topped the 237,000 mark bringing the country’s total registered accounts to more than 3.68 million! An incredible figure when you consider that Portugal’s current population is 10,1 million.

Online casinos generated more than €2.9 billion in gross gaming revenues during Q1 2023, representing an increase of nearly 25% over the previous reporting period. With 81% of all local online gaming focused on online slots, it is fair to say that it drives the lion’s share of the country’s gaming revenue, followed closely by online roulette (8.2%), blackjack (5.4%), and the Portuguese dice game, French Bank (2.5%).

 Safer Gambling is a Key Success Metric

Benefitting from the hard-won lessons of its European peers, the SRIJ is keenly aware of the importance of striking a balance between nurturing the growth of gambling businesses and ensuring a fair and safe environment for its players.

✓Strong Local Metrics:

Portugal has a handle on the needs and challenges of its player base, which is seen in the success of its self-exclusion and anti-black market gambling campaigns. The country's self-exclusion program saw a 9.5% increase in the first three months of 2023, totalling 166,2000 player accounts.

The gambling authority has been hard at work tackling the problem of unlicensed gambling sites with 30 sent cease and desist notices, 72 sites blocked at an IP level, and 3 cases passed to the Public Prosecutors Office for legal action.

✓International Cooperation:

The gambling authority is actively engaged with the technical working group CEN/TC 456/WG to meet this need. Chaired by CEN (European Committee for Standardization), the group has been tasked with developing a European standard for indicators of gambling harm.

Once approved, this list of indicators will be used across the EU to help regulators and providers better identify and support at-risk players.

 Exciting New IBIA Partnership

The Portuguese online betting and gambling association (APAJO) has also entered into an exciting cooperation agreement with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).

Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said:

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“The agreement with APAJO marks the start of a coordinated approach to meeting our shared goals to establish and maintain a dynamic, competitive and well-regulated Portuguese gambling market that deters corruption and seeks to prevent customers from being channeled into the unregulated market.”

The associations will begin pooling their expertise to create an information-sharing and oversight regime that aims to protect online gamblers from predatory offshore operators and increase the channelisation rates of licensed sites.