Poland: new verticals slow revenue decline
Poland’s Ministry of Finance says the country’s newly regulated online casino and arcade verticals have helped mitigate the drop in revenue for the past 12 months.
Poland.- The Polish Ministry of Finance has released a new report for the country’s gambling industry showing that new verticals run by Totalizator Sportowy have helped slow the decline in GGY.
Projections drawn up by H2 Gambling Capital estimate that gross gaming yield (GGY) for the year up to June 11 will prove to be down by 9.5 per cent year-on-year.
The predicted downturn in revenue is significantly less severe than the 19.6 per cent decline expected for European Markets as a whole thanks to the development of the newly regulated online casino and land-based arcade verticals, which helped offset decline in sports betting and other land-based sectors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Both new verticals opened in 2018 and are run by Totalizator Sportowy.
Online casino revenue soared by 96.7 per cent in the year up to June 11 thanks to the growth of Totalizator Sportowy’s Total Casino site, which launched in December 2018 as Poland’s only legal online casino. Casino revenue taken by offshore sites fell by 25 per cent as a result.
Total online revenue increased by 0.3 per cent, with the growth in online casino and online lotteries (up 26.2 per cent) offsetting a fall of 14.2 per cent in sports betting caused by the cancellation of sporting events.
Revenue from the land-based sector fell by 13.1 per cent owing to a 27.3 per cent drop in casino yield, a 25.4 per cent fall in betting and a 8.6 per cent fall in number games such as lotteries.
Here again, a newly regulated sector helped stem the decline. Gaming arcades, which were legalised in July 2018 and are also run by Totalizator Sportowy, saw revenue increase by 41.4 per cent in the 12 months up to June 11. As of March 2020, there were 239 arcades in operation, with 36 opening in the first quarter of the year.
In March Poland’s Association of Employers and Employees of Bookmakers called on the Ministry of Finance to reduce the 12 per cent tax levied on sports betting revenue to help mitigate the loss of earnings due to Covid-19.
