Despite the fact that Portugal’s regulated online poker market is relatively nascent, the country has joined the shared liquidity project, active negotiations about which commenced about this time last summer.
Europe’s southwesternmost nation saw its first licensed poker website go live in late November 2016. PokerStars was the operator to be granted that first license and has remained the only online poker operator in the market ever since.
Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ) posted earlier this week information about the market’s performance in the quarter to June 30, 2017 and it could be said that figures were a bit discouraging.
Revenue from online gambling services totaled €25.4 million during the reviewed three months, down from €31.4 million in the previous quarter. Portugal’s iGaming market experienced its first quarterly revenue drop since the first license was issued by SRIJ in May 2016.
The online casino segment also shrunk last quarter to €11.4 million from €13.9 million reported for the three months ended March 31, 2017. Online poker represented 32.6% of the overall online casino market. Cash games accounted for 23.9% and tournament poker represented 8.7%.
In revenue terms, cash game poker generated a total of €2.7 million during the reported quarter, down from the amount of €3.3 million reported for the previous three months. As for tournament poker, revenue from that type of service totaled €991,800, reflecting a decrease from €1.3 million from the previous quarter.
Regulated online poker started off with flying colors in Portugal. As mentioned above, PokerStars launched its .pt website in late November to see terrific interest among local players. The online poker room’s first days in the country were marked by a weekly average of cash game players of 2,000, which was more than what some .com poker rooms had.
At the time this article is being produced, there are 55 cash game players on PokerStars’ .pt website, with a 24-hour peak of 1,082 such players. In other words and as expected, initial interest has worn off.
Portugal, just like France, Italy, and Spain, has regulated its online poker market in a manner that prevents local players from joining international pools. That regulatory regime has proved quite unsuccessful in the other three jurisdictions, and it seems that it has begun taking its toll in Portugal, as well.
The four countries signed their shared liquidity project, the result from negotiations that have taken place over the past year, in early July. Last week, Spain and France opened the application process for operators interested to participate in the creation of an online poker network that would merge the player pools of the four jurisdictions. It is believed that if all the necessary regulatory terms are set according to plan, the project would be realized in late 2017 or the first months of 2018.
