Market reality

Online versus offline in Europe

Online gaming in Europe is a young, dynamic and quickly evolving services industry. Representing slightly more than 7% of the total gaming market today, the sector is expected to account for 12% of the total market by 2012. Over the same period, the traditional operators will also see their land based business grow, albeit at a slower pace. 

There are two reasons for the online gaming sector not developing to the detriment of the land based sector:

  • Different product profiles: First, revenues generated by traditional land based operators stem from long-established products, such as those found in physical betting shops, casinos and bingo halls, and also from non sports related products like scratch cards and lottery tickets. 
  • Different customer profile: There is a very low substitution level between the online and traditional land based sector because of the different player profiles (online players tend to be more educated and younger) – see link to Nomisna study

Monopolies versus private operators  

The European online gaming market is proving to be very attractive for traditional monopolies (i.e. FDJ in France, Svenska Spel in Sweden). Lottery operators also offer consumers the opportunity to play and gamble online (through casino, poker and sports games). Traditional monopolies account for more than 25% of the European online gaming market.

In Scandinavia, this proportion is much higher with an estimated market share of around 40%. The online market share of the traditional monopolies is expected to grow as fast, if not faster than private operators (70% growth between 2008 and 2012 against 68% growth for private operators).

See link to market figures