Online sports betting in Portugal outperformed its casino counterpart in the first six months of 2021 as bettors basked in the uninterrupted live sports calendar.

As revealed in Portugal Betting Focus, the latest industry report from BtoBet (available to download here), 39.9% of players placed their bets exclusively on sports betting, while 26.2% opted to bet solely on online casinos.

However, many bettors showed a preference for both verticals as 33.9% engaged themselves in both sports betting and casino.

Portugal’s online GGR for the first six months of this year amounted to €253.3 million – €137 million of which was generated by sports betting compared to €116 million by casinos.

It should be noted that sports betting GGR was down 3% from Q1 2021 (€69.5 to €67.5 million), but the year-on-year (YoY) comparisons were, inevitably, very favourable. 

Revenues in Q2 2020, a period for sports heavily disrupted by Covid, only amounted to €20.8 million, so this year’s €67.5 million equates to a huge 224.9% increase.

Unsurprisingly, football was the key driver for sports betting activity, representing nearly 80% (77.48) of the total volume of sports bets. Bets placed on tennis and basketball accounted for about 18% of the total volume with 9.63% and 8.74% respectively.

View the full report HERE.