Part 3: The position of the monopolies responsibility not to directly crosspromote. However, operators fear a subtler cross-pollination between the two could occur, an outcome that the finance ministry report would appear to acknowledge.
Among its recommendations for reviewing Svenska Spel’ s performance in the period following regulation, the report suggests there should be investigations to:
Explain how the division of Svenska Spel has( been) implemented;
• Review the role of the company after the division of the continuing lottery monopoly and the new online business;
• Consider and report any additional measures considered necessary for the company to restructure; and
• Propose any clarifications of the division of the company in the respective market segments according to the new game rules.
Back in April, Käll at Svenska Spel said:“ We are dividing the business so that the fully competitive part is clearly distinguished from the part that will continue to have exclusive rights on certain forms of gambling. We do this to comply with competition law.”
As noted in part one of this report, there are fears among the soon-to-be-licensed private operators that this division remains a less than level playing field.
Svenska Spel revenue performance 2017 Svenska Spel is already clearly a force in online. According to its 2017 annual report, total net gaming revenues hit SEK8.98bn(€ 868m) for the year.
Of this total, the company says in its quarterly breakdown that online operations accounted for circa 25 % of the total across all products. Breaking that down further by channel, it said that across the four quarters the average desktop percentage was 10.5 %, while mobile stood at an average of close to 14 % for 2017 as a whole.
However, going by the first quarter 2018 results, the mobile
Table 7: Svenska Spel net gaming revenue 2017
Product set NGR( SEKbn) Sports betting 1.79 Lottery and instants 4.84
VLTs 1.12
Land-based casino 1.13
Poker 0.1
Total 8.98
Source: Svenska Spel percentage is clearly rising steeply – up to 20 % for the first three months of the year versus 10 % for desktop. Mobile is not only growing but it would appear to be adding largely incremental growth.
Svenska Spel and poker The true anomaly in the recent story of Svenska Spel comes with the history of its online poker operation. Launched in 2006 off the back of what the company termed at the time an“ online poker boom” in Sweden, Svenska Spel’ s poker was such a success that on measures such as PokerScout, the site was registering as one of the top 10 in terms of global liquidity.
Of course, over the course of the intervening dozen years the popularity of poker in Sweden has waned as much as it has elsewhere. As can be seen, from a high almost immediately after launch of SEK385m(€ 37m at today’ s exchange rate) revenue from poker has fallen by almost three-quarters to stand at SEK101m(€ 9.8m) in 2017.
It is a stretch to draw too many lessons from this trajectory given the degree to which it is inevitably tied to global poker trends rather than anything country specific. However, it does point to Svenska Spel having a history( albeit in limited circumstances) of being able to attract new online players when it opens up with new products.
Calculating Svenska Spel’ s online advantage: What is also clear from Svenska Spel’ s 2016 report( but
Sweden: The transition to regulation in one of Europe’ s most advanced digital markets 19