In recent years, the betting industry has begun to change. People who gamble, especially on sports, are now constrained to being regulated and operators are beginning to pull out due to tax burdens that the regulations include. Portugal especially has taken a hard hit in sports betting; the market began to do well in 2016 along with the Euro 2016 tournament, but plummeted again as the regulations became more strict.
Sports betting agencies have had a difficult time surviving due to their strict regulations. The results of such changes, with the use of Portugal's national gambling regulator, SRIJ, show that gamblers were beginning to use online casinos which were left unregulated. Online sports betting revenue has boomed to an astounding $40.4 million in 2018. Sports betting in Portugal has taken a sharp hit, so it leads to several other platforms of gambling. Online sports betting has continued to take the lead in the overall gambling market. Football of course obtains 75% of the market's shares while basketball comes in a distant second with 10.6% of shares. Online casinos in Portugal continue to depend heavily on its online platform, should the decline of sports betting make too heavy a hit.
Portugal Casinos – History and Future
Online casinos in 2018 have contributed to a total of 18 percent for the last two years with consistent streaming revenue. Online gambling operators largely thank the SRIJ for helping their growth increase over the last year. With the addition of their regulations and casino licenses, the market has increased in their number of players which, of course, means more people gambling. SRIJ is made a big move earlier this May. They are set to help raise the revenues of online casinos even more due to the allowance of shared poker liquidity with countries around the globe, including Spain, France, and hopefully Italy in the close future. There is nothing but projected good times and growth for gamblers and online casino gambling.
For a long time now, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal have been working on a deal to allow their active agencies across the four countries to come and gamble together. By doing this, they increase the revenue and have a pool of online gamblers from across four countries. They officially signed the deal on July of 2017 after France and Spain had done a trial run and showed that it worked well.
Portugal went on to progress the deal further and incorporated the online gambling plan into their 2018 budget by use of several amendments. Italy has been the country to be most sluggish in walking into the deal. They are still undecided as to whether they will joining the other three countries in the deal, though they seem open on the matter and will certainly give an answer soon. PokerStars became the first online casino operators to implement the three countries plan. It came to fruition on April of 2018, and now invites players from France, Spain, and Portugal to come together in online gambling.
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