Denmark reports double-digit decline in 2022 online sports betting revenue

Below, iGaming NEXT breaks down some of the most important figures included in the report.
Annual GGR by vertical

In 2022, the total GGR generated in the Danish gambling market was DKK10.1bn, down 2.8% from DKK10.4bn in 2021 and even further behind the DKK10.8bn generated in both 2018 and 2019.
Breaking those figures down by vertical, the gaming machine and land-based casino sectors were the only two areas which saw increases in the amount of GGR generated year-on-year, as they increased by 36.9% and 47.9%, respectively.
Increases in the amounts generated in Denmark’s land-based sectors were directly related to the Covid pandemic, as both 2020 and 2021 saw businesses shuttered for extended periods of time.
By 2022, the effect of pandemic-related lockdowns fell significantly, as businesses were closed for just the first month of the year.
Meanwhile the lotteries vertical, which is the largest market segment by GGR, fell by 8.2% to DKK3.38bn, while the online casino and betting verticals suffered similar fates, falling by 4.2% and 10.8%, respectively.
Reduced revenues in the online sector may also have been related to Covid lockdowns, as online gambling spend may have increased while entertainment and leisure options for Danes were limited.
Land based vs. online

This graph shows the steady increase of online gambling GGR both in real terms and as a percentage of overall revenue since Denmark launched its regulated market in 2012.
In the market’s first year post-launch, just 31% of GGR came from the online sector, while the figure has steadily increased since then to 63% in 2022, after peaking at 65% in 2021 as a result of Covid lockdowns.
Online GGR first surpassed land-based in 2018 and has continued to grow overall since then.

Other figures released by the DGA showed that 70% of online GGR came from mobile devices in 2022, with 30% coming from computer users.
That figure represents the largest ever reported proportion of online GGR coming from mobile, having started with a market share of just 11% in 2012.Mobile first overtook computers as the primary source of online GGR in 2017, while the precipitous growth of the format seems to have slowed somewhat in later years.
Player demographics

The DGA has also offered insight into player demographics by setting out the number of online gambling accounts belonging to customers grouped by age and sex, using figures from 2021.
By far the largest individual demographic by number of online casino accounts is men aged between 18 and 25, who collectively account for 24% of all accounts.
Women in the same age group represent just 4% of online casino accounts.
As age increases, the percentage of accounts attributable to each group decreases, with customers aged 46 and over collectively accounting for 29% of accounts, and those aged 45 or under accounting for 71%.
Men hold a higher proportion of the accounts across all age ranges except for the very highest, those customers aged 76 and over.

In the online betting vertical, the same pattern can be observed, albeit skewed even more in favour of men. Women over the age of 56 account for just 1% of betting accounts, while men under 55 account for 74%.
Overall, some 85% of online betting accounts and 72% of online casino accounts belonged to men in 2021.
Gambling spend vs. rest of Europe

By setting out the gambling spend per adult across a series of European countries, the DGA offers a comparison of Danish gambling activity compared to the rest of the continent.
Denmark ranks 12th on the list of highest gambling spend per adult, with an average spend of DKK2,343 (€314.57) per adult per year.
That puts Denmark ahead of countries including Estonia, the Netherlands and Spain, but significantly behind the highest spending countries of Ireland, Iceland and Italy.
In 2022, Danes spent around 59% as much on gambling as the Irish, who were the highest spenders per adult included in the list.
The level of spend per adult in Denmark was broadly in line with that of Malta, Sweden, Great Britain, Norway and Greece, where the average spend was between €320 and €336 per adult per year.