Denmark
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Online casino outperforms betting for first time in Denmark

The GGR for online casino in Denmark last year may have surpassed that of sports betting for the first time since the partial liberalisation of the country’s gambling market in 2012, but the sector swing in 2020 might not be a sign of things to come. 

As revealed in the Denmark Betting Focus report by BtoBet, which is available to download HERE, GGR for online casino reached DKK 2,453 million (27% market share), whereas betting took 25% (DKK 2,290 million GGR).

It should be acknowledged, though, that the Covid pandemic had a big bearing on this outcome, as it led to a greatly reduced sports calendar particularly in Q2 2020. 

However, it was not plain sailing for licensed casino operators in Denmark either, as a string of social responsibility controls brought in as of 1 January 2020 included an update to the certification process which made monthly, weekly or daily player deposit limits mandatory.

This update, alongside several other new controls around sales promotions, is likely to have blunted the boom to online casino GGR seen in other countries. The DKK 2,453 million recorded was less than 5% up from the DKK 2,354 million for the sector in 2019.

It will, therefore, be interesting to see how GGR for sports betting and casino matches up in 2021 after an extra year of bedding in for the social responsibility controls (most of which are felt across both), but with a ‘normal’ sports calendar. For context, as sports resumed, October saw the highest ever monthly sports betting GGR in Denmark at DKK 303 million.

The combined GGR for lotteries, online casino, betting, gaming machines and land-based casino in 2020 was DKK 9.173bn, 6.5% down from the DKK 9.813bn of GGR in 2019. This does, however, still reflect a big increase since the DKK 7.9 billion in 2012.

Average gambling spend per Dane over 18 years old per week was DKK 37.80. Out of this total, DKK 13 was spent on lotteries, while just DKK 1 was spent on land-based casinos. 

The rest was spent on online casino, betting and gaming machines. Interestingly, the spend had increased every year from 2014 to 2018 (peaking at DKK 40.93) but has declined in each of the last two years.

Unsurprisingly, Spillemyndigheden data indicates that the share for online gambling has increased markedly since 2012, when it made up 31% of the market, to the 59% it accounted for in 2020. The 5% uptick from 2019 to 2020 was the largest increase of GGR registered by online channels since 2012.

To read the full report from BtoBet, please click HERE.

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