Denmark saw a huge rise in sports betting revenue in the final quarter of the year push the countries total gross gaming revenue over the DKK2billion mark for the year as a whole. In the fourth quarter gross gaming revenue (GGR) from betting hit DKK355million with the three preceding quarters not even able to top the 300m mark. The casino market also saw a significant increase with GGR returning to the second quarter level of DKK235m after a brief lull in Q3. It all meant that total GGR for the period in question was DKK590m and the year ended with a GGR of DKK2,045bn.
The Danish Gambling Authority also released estimation on “the illegal market” and it’s their opinion that “illegal” or unlicensed operators are unlikely to have any more than a 5 per cent share of the market. They commented that this is based on the following factors:
- Relatively many licences have been granted
- The licence holders aggregate GGR bets expectations
- An advertising ban on operators without a licence works very effective
- The Danish Gambling Authority has the possibility to block activity from homepages with no licence.
The DGA also added that since the market was regulated it has led to a significant drop unregulated firms operating and that in itself led them to lengthen a number of licences from one to five years just last month. Figures showed last month that state-owned Danske Spil still owns 62 percent of the market and it’s likely to be some time until others start to catch them up.
