The recently regulated online gambling market in Portugal, last week issued their eighth iGaming service licence to a company which has been in Portugal's gambling market for the last 5 decades.
Estoril Sol, had their first licence issued last summer and now they will also start to offer sports betting services which will be powered by a Belgian iGaming company Gaming1. In addition to their online gambling services, Estoril Sol also operates 3 land based casinos, namely Casino Lisboa, Casino Estoril and Casino da Póvoa.
SRIJ, which stands for Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos, is the regulatory body who takes care of the online gambling regulations in Portugal. The first ever licence that was issued since the market was officially regulated was back in spring of 2016. The beneficial company was BEM Operations Ltd. which is the main subsidiary operator for Betclic. At first they offered sports betting services but later on they have also acquired the online casino games licence.
Later last year, poker giants PokerStars also made a grand entry into Portogual's online gambling market with their world renowned online poker service. It is also important to note that PokerStars is, to date, the only online poker service provider in the country.
A constant and considerable growth in revenue was noted in the first 3 quarters of the new regulation existence. In the first three months of the year, the revenue totalled to €31.4 million. Casino and sports betting are taxed differently from each other in Portugal. While SportsBook operators are taxed on turnover between 8% and 16% and with that rate increases proportionally, Online casinos are also taxed on turnover but it goes up proportionally to 30%.