The marketing push by Spanish operators at the end of last year saw active players and new player registrations hit record highs in December.
Though GGR in the igaming market dropped back in the fourth quarter after a strong rebound in the third quarter, player numbers continued to grow.
In December active players hit a record high of 1.04m, while over the quarter active players were up 11.4% on Q3.
Similarly, new player registrations peaked at 313,515 in December, with the quarterly figures up 17.1% on the previous quarter.
This is likely due to licensed operators increasing their marketing efforts – advertising spend was up 10.8% in the fourth quarter – ahead of the strict controls on advertising expected to come into force soon.
The extra spending came at a cost, however, and despite turnover rising in the final quarter of 2019, GGR fell by 3.7% compared with the third quarter. It was also flat compared with the same quarter the previous year.
Though sports betting had been the strongest performing vertical in Q3, in Q4 betting GGR fell by 12.1%. It was also down 10.1% on the final quarter of the previous year.
Casino, on the other hand, rebounded during the final few months of last year. GGR was up 7.5% on the previous quarter and 10.4% on the final quarter of 2018.
This diverging performances of the two main verticals left betting falling back to a market share of 50.52% of the Spanish igaming market, while casino rose to 36.66%.
Poker revenues were flat on a quarter-by-quarter basis, but bingo revenues fell significantly, dropping 16%.
Ficom Leisure also provides exclusive monthly estimates on the Italian online market in the Italy iGaming Dashboard, including operator market shares across casino, sports betting and poker. It also provides monthly estimates on several US states, including New Jersey in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard, Indiana in the Indiana iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard.
European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure is a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.
