The Scandinavian area is on track to become a €4 billion marketplace in 2023, as per the H2 Nordic Dashboard. This expansion is being propelled by Sweden’s rules governing online wagering.

The iGamingBusiness.com Nordic Dashboard, in collaboration with H2 Gambling Capital, anticipates that the region will attain a €44.6 billion market by 2023. This expansion is being driven by the regulation of online gambling in Sweden.

The report projects that the gross profit share from authorized products will rise from 61.5% to 80.5% over the next five years. This increase is being fueled by the growth of the channeled and dot.se markets.

The report also asserts that regulation is a key driver of online gambling growth. This is evident in the growth from 2013 (one year after Denmark’s regulation) to 2018, and the forecast for 2018 to 2023.

The report also observes that markets such as Norway and Finland have not exhibited any signs of shifting towards a protectionist monopoly model. This has resulted in the formation of successful offshore markets, although each nation is intensifying efforts to suppress unlicensed activities.

In 2018, Nordic online gambling gross profit was €34.9 billion, up 10.1% year-on-year.

The Swedish online gambling market, which was officially launched on January 1st, 2019, has taken the lead in the past year, accounting for 34% of the region’s 2018 total income. Finland follows closely with 25%, and Denmark with 20%.

Statistics released by the Swedish gambling authority, Spelinspektionen, show that unlicensed operations in Sweden continued to increase in 2018. Finland’s Veikkaus attributed its decline that year to unregulated growth. However, the second half of 2018 indicates that Nordic gamblers are moving towards regulated gambling products, with licensed sites accounting for 61.5% of total income, a 0.8 percentage point rise from 2017.

When looking at the product mix over the past year, sports betting is the most popular category by far. In 2018, betting accounted for 40% of total online gambling income in the Nordics, with casino coming in second with a 28% share. The market share of national lotteries has been diminished as gamblers shift towards other categories, accounting for 19% of total income.

However, the Nordic region appears to be behind other regulated markets in terms of mobile adoption. In 2018, the channel accounted for 44.5% of online gambling total income, while mobile has become the preferred way to gamble in other regions. The second half of 2018 states that mobile is expected to continue to grow, becoming the dominant channel by 2020, with its revenue share increasing to 59.6% by 2023.

With the exception of Sweden, internet wagering in the Nordic area is less widespread than conventional gambling. For instance, in 2018, online gambling represented 43.1% of total market earnings in Finland and 43.8% in Iceland. The online gambling marketplaces in Denmark (49.6%) and Norway (49.2%) are both expanding, but still trail behind Sweden, where internet gambling constitutes 51.9% of gambling income. Throughout the Nordic region, online gambling makes up 48.3% of revenue, and is projected to increase to 56.5% by 2023.

H2 Gambling Capital is a leading advisory, market intelligence and data group for the gambling sector. The firm has 18 years of global gambling industry experience, and its predictions have had a substantial impact on global lawmakers and investors’ perspectives on the gambling sector.

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