Spain's Online Gambling GGR Reaches €454.1m in Q1, Casino Takes 54.5% Share

Spain's regulated online gambling market opened 2026 with another double-digit annual gain. The Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), the country's gambling regulator, reported first-quarter online gross gaming revenue of €454.1 million (about US$527 million), up 13.9% year on year. The figure was down 6.4% from a strong fourth quarter of 2025, a seasonal pattern the market has repeated for several years. Player deposits rose 17.6% year on year and 5.6% quarter on quarter to €1.59 billion (about US$1.84 billion).

The €454.1 million total compares with €398.1 million in Q1 2025, when GGR grew 13.7% year on year. The growth rate has held remarkably steady across recent quarters even as the absolute base has climbed.

The Q1 numbers by segment

Online casino did the heavy lifting. It generated €247.7 million, 54.5% of all online revenue, up 21.7% year on year and up 2.4% from Q4 2025. Within casino, slots rose 22.6% and live roulette rose 23.5%. A year earlier, casino sat at €203.1 million on a 20.6% annual gain, so the vertical has both grown and increased its share of the pie.

Sports betting grew far more slowly and its internal mix shifted hard. Total betting GGR reached €174.4 million, 38.4% of revenue, up 5.1% year on year. In-play revenue jumped 34.4% while pre-match revenue fell 18.2%, the same directional split the DGOJ flagged a year earlier. Spanish bettors are moving off coupons booked before kickoff and onto live, in-running markets priced on real-time data.

Poker continued its recovery at €28.2 million, up 10.8% year on year after a soft 2024. Bingo was effectively flat at €3.6 million. For context on the operator field, the DGOJ counted 77 licensed operators in Spain a year earlier, of which 64 held at least one active license: 52 in casino, 41 in betting, nine in poker, four in bingo and two in contests. Casino's lead in active licenses tracks where the revenue is concentrating.

Marketing spend and the affiliate line

Operators raised marketing outlay 12% year on year to €184.7 million (about US$214 million) in the quarter. The breakdown:

• Promotions and bonuses: €91 million (US$106m)
• Advertising: €73.85 million (US$86m)
• Affiliates: €17.4 million (US$20m)
• Sponsorship: €2.6 million (US$3m)

Two reported observations stand out for operators and affiliates working Spain. First, casino rather than sports betting is carrying revenue growth, so product demand and the partner offers that convert best are tilting toward slots and live casino tables. Second, the €17.4 million affiliate line, set against €184.7 million in total marketing, shows the share of Spanish operator budgets still routed through partners in a market where bonus-led acquisition is legally constrained.

That constraint has a measurable history. Royal Decree 958/2020, which applied between November 2020 and August 2021, banned welcome bonuses aimed at new customers, prohibited celebrity-led ads, restricted TV, radio and video advertising to a 1am to 5am window, and ended sportswear and stadium sponsorships. Academic analysis using DGOJ data found the decree produced a permanent fall of roughly 263,000 in new accounts and a €216 million drop in money wagered, alongside reductions in advertising spend (about €20 million), bonuses (€2.6 million) and sponsorship (€5.3 million). New online accounts fell 55% over the period, from 3.01 million in 2020 to 1.35 million in 2023. Spain's Supreme Court later annulled several of those restrictions, and ad spend has since returned toward pre-decree levels, which is the regulatory backdrop to the current €73.85 million quarterly advertising figure and the renewed marketing growth.

The advertising rebound and the in-play swing point to where acquisition and product effort are flowing. Casino kept its share above half of the market for another quarter, and live betting outgrew the pre-match book it is replacing.