Sports betting volumes in Denmark fell sharply year-over-year in October, a warning sign for the sector ahead of a wide ranging ban on advertising looming in a year’s time.

In stark contrast to October 2024, which saw a huge surge in betting activity compared to 2023, the same month this year saw betting gross gaming revenue (GGR) fall 46%. This dragged the rest of the market, with industry-wide GGR down 3.4% to DKK 599m (€80m).

Sports betting GGR for October 2024 stood at €208m while this year it has dropped to €112m this year, negatively impacting wider market GGR despite land-based casinos and gaming machines seeing upticks.

This is somewhat unusual given we are in the middle of the football season, with the Danish Superliga still underway alongside popular international tournaments like the Champions League, English Premier League and Spanish LaLiga.

Black market to blame?

The ban on advertising announced earlier this year also cannot be blamed, as this does not come into effect in 2027. Another possible culprit could be the industry’s favourite boogeyman – the black market.

Some of Denmark’s Nordic neighbours – namely Sweden and Finland – have been struggling to contain the extent of offshore black market activity targeting their shores.

In Finland, this has prompted the government to initiate a huge overhaul of the country’s gambling system which will unseat the state-owned monopoly of Veikkaus Oy – though the start date for this has been delayed from January to June 2027.

Similar to many other Nordic nations, and European markets by large, Denmark is also having to battle the black market. The gambling regulator, Spillemyndigheden; the consumer ombudsman, Forbrugerombudsmanden; and the gambling board, the Spilreklamenævnet, signed a cooperative agreement to do so last year.

Meanwhile, Spillemyndigheden – the governing body which released the gambling market statistics discussed above – has been embarking on an extensive campaign against illegal gambling, blocking 79 websites in one instance last year.

However, as the Spillemyndigheden has not stated what it believes led to the decline in betting revenue it is purely speculation that the black market may have been to blame. The regulators have also shown to be taking a lot of action against it.

Betting struggles, casino gains

Also, while betting may have struggled, online casino revenue jumped in October 2024.

This is notable as in neighbouring Sweden, which as mentioned above has been suffering well publicised problems with the black market. Illegal gambling operations have largely centred on the online casino vertical, while sports betting has been a success story.

The struggles of the Danish betting sector clearly date back some months this year. Not only was betting revenue down in October, it was also down in September (35% from DKK 144m to DKK 93m), despite seeing growth in every other month of the year.

In contrast, online casino revenue grew 24.43% from DKK 286m in GGR for October 2024 to DKK 356m in November 2024. Land-based casino revenue was up 6% from DKK 30m to DKK 31m.

All in all, Danish GGR for the year-to-date came in at DKK 13.56bn, with online casino the largest segment accounting for 51% of GGR. This was followed by sports betting at 28%, gaming machines at 15% and land-based casino at 4.95%.