Last updated on November 30th, 2018 at 10:23 pm
Greece has always enjoyed a high amount of gambling activity for a long time. But the numbers released by Greece’s Gaming Supervision and Control Commission (EEP) are showing high numbers for land-based gambling. According to their figures, their citizens have spent €6.01 billion. This is an 8.7% increase when you compare to 2016’s numbers. Last year, the total for land-based gross gambling was up by 2.3% in revenue at €1.63 billion.
For online betting in Greece, the turnover was €5.28 billion last year. This is from the 24 companies that have “transitional” permits to operate in the country. The numbers from last year is higher than the €5 billion in the previous year. The demand for sportsbook software is also incidentally high for the Greeks.
Optimistic Market for Online Betting in Greece
Up until now, these operators who are working with the transitional permit still don’t know when they will be able to get their permanent online gambling licenses from the government. There is a lot of interest, despite the rumors of a proposal on tax on revenue from gambling. The rumor is, tax is around 35%.
It is pretty amazing, to see these numbers in a country that only has 11 million citizens. If you divide the total amount spent on gambling, which is at €11 billion, every single citizen kind of places a bet of an estimated €1,000. And these are the official figures. There is also revenue from unauthorized gambling which is around €5 billion, so you are looking at a total spending of €16 billion in gambling.
The numbers we are seeing explains why there is such a high demand for online betting companies to be able to operate in Greece. If anything, the revenue from unauthorized operators have prompted local officials to question the national government. They are wondering what is taking so long for the government to release online gambling permits. Their argument, of course, is that given the proposed tax generated from the additional revenue would greatly contribute to funding their government coffers.