Portugal’s regulated online poker market is one of Europe’s youngest, if not the youngest one. New gambling laws took effect in the sun-kissed Southern European country last spring. Among other things, these legalized the provision of licensed online poker services.
The country’s regulated online poker market was formally established in late November. That happened after major operator PokerStars was granted a license from the local gambling regulator, Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ).
PokerStars went live with its .pt website in early December and has ever since remained the sole operator to be providing online poker services in the nascent market.
SRIJ has recently posted its first comprehensive report on the development of Portugal’s iGaming market over the first ten months of its existence. The report encompassed financial information as well as information about the way each of the regulated online gambling segments has changed within the reviewed period to March 31, 2017.
As reported by SRIJ, the amount of €82.2 million was generated in revenue since the first sports betting license was granted to Betclic on May 25, 2016. Sports betting was, in fact, the highest grossing sector during the reported ten months, claiming 70% of the market.
Casino games, online poker included, generated the total amount of €25.1 million in revenue in the the months between July 25, 2016, when the first online casino license was issued to local operator ESTORIL SOL DIGITAL, ONLINE GAMING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, S.A. and March 31, 2017.
According to SRIJ’s report, revenue from online poker represented 32.72% of the online casino bulk. The sector thus became the second largest in Portugal’s online casino market, trailing only behind online slot machines, which accounted for almost 34% of the whole.
In other words, PokerStars generated a total of €8.2 million between early-December 2016 and late-March 2017 and managed to turn into a major player in the local market within a relatively short span.
Initial data showed that PokerStars’ had launched its Portuguese website with what could be determined as flying colors. The number of cash game players on the site averaged 2,000 during its first days of operation.
Traffic figures have subsided since then, just as expected, but what matters more here is the fact that there clearly is demand for online poker in the country. At the time of writing, PokerScout traffic data shows that there are 30,397 players online on the PokerStars’ .pt website. Of those, 49 are playing cash games.
Portugal’s poker market, just as the ones of France, Italy, and Spain, is ring-fenced, which means that local players cannot participate in international player pools. Ring-fencing was a broadly discussed topic last year, as it was up to SRIJ to determine whether it would impose such limitations to its newly regulated market or not.
The regulator eventually decided in favor of the move, despite criticism from local players and related parties. However, the online poker environment in Portugal as well as in the above-mentioned three countries may soon change as their respective regulatory bodies are currently in the process of negotiating shared liquidity agreements that are hoped to boost poker activity. It is believed that first such agreements will be signed by the end of June and a poker network that will see the player pools of the four countries merged will be created in late 2017 or early 2018.
