Portugal's gambling market showed online growth in 2025
Portugal’s gambling market closed 2025 with online gambling still expanding, even as parts of the land-based casino sector were still awaiting the outcome of delayed concession tenders.
New figures from the gambling regulator SRIJ show online gross revenue reached €337.6m in the fourth quarter, up 4.5 per cent from a year earlier and 13.6 per cent from the previous quarter. The result underlines how firmly digital gambling has taken the lead in Portugal, with online casino-style games driving most of the growth while sports betting produced a weaker annual comparison.
Online play keeps pulling ahead
SRIJ said online gambling activity generated €337.6m in gross revenue in the final three months of the year, with 63.4 per cent of that total coming from games of chance and 36.6 per cent from fixed-odds sports betting. Revenue from online casino products rose to €214.0m, up 15.9 per cent year on year, while sports betting revenue fell 10.6 per cent to €123.6m.
Those figures suggest Portugal is moving in line with a broader European pattern, in which online casino products account for a larger share of digital gambling revenue than sports betting: the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), an industry body for licensed online gambling operators in the EU, said in its 2025 market figures that casino games accounted for 45 per cent of Europe’s online gross gaming revenue in 2024, compared with 29 per cent for sports and events betting.
Betting volumes, however, also rose sharply. Sports betting turnover reached €571.1m in the quarter, while stakes on games of chance climbed to €5.9bn. Football remained dominant, accounting for 75.6 per cent of all sports bets, with tennis and basketball trailing behind. In online casino play, slot-style games made up 80.4 per cent of the total.
Market tracker Blask’s ranking of Portuguese user interest also points to a concentrated market. By Brand’s Accumulated Power, or BAP (a brand’s share of total user interest), Betclic led with 23.13 per cent, just ahead of Betano on 22.55 per cent, while Placard ranked third on 11.01 per cent. Combined, the three brands accounted for 56.69 per cent of total BAP, underscoring how strongly user interest is clustered around a small group of SRIJ-licensed brands.
The market’s user base continued to widen, though at a slower pace than before. Total player registrations stood at 4.9 million by the end of December, up 4.5 per cent from a year earlier. New registrations, however, fell 23.5 per cent to 231,400, suggesting the market is moving out of its earlier breakneck expansion and into a more mature phase.
Casino sector faces a waiting game
While online operators posted another quarter of growth, Portugal’s land-based casino industry started 2026 in limbo.
The government recently granted temporary extensions for the Algarve, Espinho and Póvoa de Varzim concessions for up to 120 days from 1 January, or until new operators take over. Ministers said the measure was exceptional and designed to avoid disruption while the tender process is completed. The tender timetable had already been affected earlier in 2025 by political disruption, but the temporary extension was justified on the basis that the remaining formalities had not yet been completed.
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