- Revenue from online poker in Spain for the third quarter of the year exceeded €19.8 million.
- Revenue from cash games totaled €7.4 million while fees from poker tournaments brought in €12.4 million.
- Record revenue comes after regulations were liberated in to allow cross-border liquidity sharing for operators with an online gaming presence in France and Portugal.
Revenue from online poker in Spain for the third quarter of the year exceeded €19.8 million, according to figures released last week by the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ).
Q3 2018 represents the largest amount ever generated during the span of July through September since the market regulated in 2012. It also represents the second largest quarter in terms of Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) on record.
Revenue from cash games totaled €7.4 million while fees from poker tournaments brought in €12.4 million.
Record revenue comes after regulations were liberated last year to allow cross-border liquidity sharing for operators with an online gaming presence in France and Portugal.
Operators hope to add their players in Italy once the Italian gaming regulator begins issuing the required authorizations.
Since January 2018, when DGOJ first authorized operators to combine their player pools with participating countries that had also authorized cross-border liquidity sharing, online poker revenue in Spain has shown tremendous annual growth.
Online poker began to turn around in the final quarter of 2016, with the 4.6% annual growth stemming two years of year-on-year declines. But the single digit growth enjoyed in the market during Q4 2016 and over the course of 2017 skyrocketed to 41.6% in Q1 2018, the first period that shared liquidity was authorized.
Cash games in particular have benefited from shared liquidity, as the new liberalized regulations thwarted 17 consecutive quarters of annual decline in the sector. Revenue from cash games has rebounded off of its all-time low of 35.4% market share, to 37.2% in Q3.
September 2018 marked the third highest month for online poker revenue on record with €7.1 million. Only February and March of this year brought in more with €7.3 million and €7.7 million respectively.
Online gaming revenue across all product verticals totaled nearly €182 million last quarter, the most ever generated in the market. At €97 million, sports betting accounted for more than 53% of all igaming GGR, while casino games made up 33% and poker 11%.
