Swedish gambling revenue remains steady despite pandemic

Online growth made up for a drop in gambling revenue from Sweden’s land-based sector.

Sweden.- Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on land-based gambling revenue, Sweden’s total gambling revenue for 2020 remained steady.

Revenue reached SEK24.69bn (€2.44bn), down just 0.4 per cent year-on-year. 

Despite the introduction of monthly deposit limits for online casino in July, online growth still managed to make up for the decline in revenue from the land-based sector.

Online gaming revenue on the up

Revenue from online betting and gaming rose 8.1 per cent year-on-year to SEK15.16bn. 

Online revenue even set a new quarterly record in the final quarter of the year, coming in at SEK4.19bn. That made it a record quarter overall, with gambling revenue from all sectors reaching SEK6.79bn, an increase of 2.1 per cent on the same period in 2019.

Land-based revenue suffers

Meanwhile, full-year revenue from state-owned Svenska Spel’s Tur state lottery and Vegas line of slot machines dropped 8.1 per cent to SEK5.44bn. Revenue from its Casino Cosmopol land-based casinos fell 79.9 per cent to SEK196m. Casinos were closed for most of the year.

Charitable lotteries saw revenue increase 4 per cent to SEK3.55bn, while revenue from bingo fell 21.9 per cent to SEK182m and revenue from restaurant casinos fell 26.9 per cent to SEK166m.