iGB E-zines iGB e-zine Sweden | Page 10

Part 2: The current online market Fortune Lounge in January 2015; Gaming Innovation Group bought up Magenti Media in March 2016; and Raketech bought up Swedish- facing Astro Media in April 2017 and most recently the Scandinavian- focused Shogun Media. Petter Moldenius, chief executive at Optimizer Invest, an investor in both Catena Media and GIG, says that understandably his company is a “very strong believer in the affiliate space in general”. “Affiliates can provide strong content, high usability and functions for the consumers. It is here to stay and will continue. In a way, there are some similarities to the operator market. But we are only scratching the surface on the potential role the affiliates will play in the online consumer journey.” All of these factors – operator side, supply side and affiliates – have combined to make the Swedish grey market one of the most buoyant within Europe. While there might yet be a mini-influx of names into the market post- regulation, we can be certain that the new market will be launching We are only scratching the surface on the potential role the affiliates will play in the online consumer journey Petter Moldenius, Optimizer Invest from a point of consistent growth in the years leading up to D-Day. The current market Below is our breakdown of estimates for market size and share, starting with the current regulated market – i.e. Svenska Spel and ATG – and official estimates for the Table 1: Svenska Spel’s total market estimates 2017 % of total Est. NGR (SEKbn) Svenska Spel 39.7 8.98 ATG 18.3 4.12 Other lotteries and VLTs 17.5 3.96 Offshore online 24.5 5.55 Sector Total Source: 10 22.6 offshore market before moving on to the estimates for some of the biggest names currently targeting Swedish players. Calculating Svenska Spel’s online advantage First, we start with Svenska Spel. What was clear from Svenska Spel’s 2016 report (but unfortunately wasn’t broken out in the 2017 version) was that it was the sports betting segment (including its pool- betting brands) where it was seeing online growth. In total, just less than 50% of sports betting revenues in 2016, which totalled SEK1.69bn (€162.87m) came from online, or circa SEK850m. If we assume a growth in the online share to 55% of the total for 2017, which does not seem unreasonable, this would give a 2017 total of circa SEK985m. Sweden: The transition to regulation in one of Europe’s most advanced digital markets