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Europe’s 2020 gambling revenue falls by almost a quarter

New figures from the European Gaming and Betting Association estimate a significant drop in 2020 revenues.

According to new data published by the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), in partnership with H2 Gambling Capital, gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the UK and EU is expected to fall by 23% in 2020.

A significant drop in revenue

The data found that Europe’s total gambling revenue is expected to drop from €98.6bn GGR in 2019 to €75.9 billion in 2020.

Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of the EGBA said: “We commend our members’ efforts in support of safer gambling and their significant investments in European sports. Like many other sectors, Europe’s gambling sector has taken a hit from COVID-19 this year but the growth trend of online continues to be strong.

“There is also still lots of room for growth in markets like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, where the online penetration of the total gambling market is still relatively low compared to other European countries.”

Looking closer at the figures

The EGBA’s data, which covers the UK and the EU-27 countries, suggests that online gambling GGR across Europe has increased 7% year-on-year to €26.3bn in 2020 from €24.5bn in 2019.

However, the increase in online gambling revenue does not make up for the financial losses across the land-based gambling sector which suffered throughout the year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In its report, the EGBA predicts that land-based revenue could drop by 33% in 2020, from €74.1bn in 2019 to €49.6bn.

Looking forward, the EGBA said that the steady growth of the European online gambling market is expected to continue, with online GGR expected to grow 7% on a yearly basis and make up 33.6% of Europe’s total gambling revenue by 2025. 

According to the trade body, the increase in GGR is expected to be supported by the growth of mobile betting. The EGBA predicts mobile betting will account for 45.6% of Europe’s online gambling revenue in 2020 and to reach 50.8% by 2022.

The EGBA also projects mobile betting revenue to account for 58.2% of the continents’ total gambling revenue in 2025

Other key takeaways

The EGBA’s update also included information on several of its member companies including bet365, Betsson Group, Entain, Kindred Group and William Hill.

According to the extra data provided, 63% of customers used at least one safer gambling tool which was up from 37% in 2019. On top of this, operators conducted 1.2m direct interventions with customers to promote safer gambling, a 50% increase from the previous year.

The industry body also noted that €340m has been invested in European sports, through sponsorships (€107m) and streaming rights (€233m), an increase of 56% in 2019.

In terms of regulatory compliance, a total of 145 online gambling licenses operate across 17 European countries. Due to know-your-customer, fraud, anti-money laundering, and betting integrity/match-fixing concerns, 1.8m customer accounts have been closed.

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