Part 4: The future
meet a new reality soon.”
The government would certainly
find a ready audience if it were
to be persuaded. Almeida at
eGaming Services suggests that
many of the biggest names in the
offshore market would be willing
to join the market were the tax
regime to be changed.
“The current tax situation in
Portugal creates, unfortunately,
a situation where people are
waiting for an update,” he says.
“Many operators come to us
and say they have everything
prepared to enter the market but
they can’t change their entire
business model due (only) to a
market such as Portugal.”
Krantz at NetEnt believes an
overhaul or revision of the tax
regime would act as a catalyst
for the whole market. “I also think
it’s important for the market to
progress and see the introduction
of other verticals, such as live
casino and pooled jackpots,
which are common features
across other regulated markets in
Europe,” he says.
“Stability and market maturity
surely bring about competition.
We’re already established on
the market and have extensive
knowledge of the challenges
and opportunities in regulated
markets, which puts us in a good
position to help operators be
successful in Portugal.”
Yet tax isn’t the only issue, with
Almeida pointing out that the
payments ecosystem also needs
improvements while more effort
needs to be made at closing down
the offshore opportunities. He
suggests that the regulator needs
more tools “with more means” and
the payments infrastructure for the
unregulated market can be looked
at more closely.
“Licensed operators are investing
in our market with the intention to
benefit their global bottom line and
we must work together to protect
the Portuguese gaming ecosystem,”
he says.
Room for growth?
The big question is where would
the Portuguese online gambling
market be were the tax regime to
be overhauled?
We already have the evidence
of potential future growth and the
estimates from the RGA/Eurogroup
on the likely channelisation rate and
size of the black market.
Another way of looking at
the market is to draw some
comparisons with regulated markets
elsewhere in Europe. It provides
some interesting contrasts.
While many of the differences
between each jurisdiction here are
obvious, it is worth drawing out
some points from the crude per
capital gambling spend figures.
As would be expected, for
various reasons Portugal’s
regulated market gives the lowest
number at €11.89.
For reference, because we also
have player numbers from the
regulator we can look at spending
both by total registrations and by
the RGA estimate of actual player
numbers. If we calculate the 2017
actual GGR figure by the average
number of account registrations
over the course of 2017 (646,075),
we get a total of €189.61. Taking
the estimate of actual player
numbers from the RGA of 120,000
this gives us €1,020.
Observations and conclusions
Notably the gambling per capita
figure is a mere 1% below that
of Spain, where the tax regime
Table 9: Selected revenues by country
Country 2017 market
GGR (€m) Pop.
(m) Per capita online
gambling spend (€) 2016 per capita
GDP ($)
Portugal 123 10.3 11.89 23,117
Denmark 448 5.73 78.18 61,582
Spain 561 46.6 12.03 32,405
France 962 66.9 14.38 42,568
Source:
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Portugal: The challenges and potential in one of Europe’s most controversial markets