Gambling and betting

Austrians gambled away more than 2 billion euros

Many foreign tourists are also returning to the twelve domestic casinos.

(Bild: Sepp Pail)

Small stakes, big money: in the hope of winning, we gambled away 2.1 billion euros in casinos, sports betting and online gambling last year, minus the winnings paid out. That was an increase of 1.7 percent. Casinos Austria's monopoly on Internet gambling could fall in the future.

Gross gaming revenue is calculated, i.e. the total stakes minus the winnings that flow back to the players. The recent increase to 2.1 billion euros is in line with the long-term upward trend. In 2020, we "only" gambled away 1.65 billion, according to a study by market researcher Branchenradar.com. But we didn't spend more money on all games. The biggest increase of almost 16 percent to 305 million euros was achieved by the twelve real casinos in Germany. In addition to domestic players, significantly more foreign guests visited the casinos, with the resurgence in tourism having a clear impact.

The second winner was online gaming via computer or smartphone. We generated 429 million euros here, three percent more than in 2022. However, the growth has slowed, as turnover in this area increased by almost a quarter in 2022. On the other hand, our gaming mood for vending machines stagnated. We invested 313 million euros in legal, illegal and video lottery machines. Sports betting even fell slightly to 378 million euros.

Sports betting hopes for a sales boom due to the European Football Championship
However, the upcoming European Football Championship is likely to generate much more interest this year, "It is usually said that such an event generates additional monthly sales," hopes Florian Sauer, Austrian head of the Entain Group (bwin etc.). Stakes in lottery games even fell for the second year in a row. Instead of 714 million euros in 2021, we only ticked tickets worth 681 million euros - but the winnings paid out have already been deducted.

Mobile gaming is more socially accepted
Experts expect strong growth worldwide, especially for online gaming. While a visit to a slot machine arcade tends to be viewed with suspicion, gambling on a cell phone is discreet and more socially accepted, says Sauer. Nevertheless, Austria is lagging far behind, and this is due to the legal conditions.

In Austria, only the Casinos Austria subsidiary win2day has a license and is therefore the only one allowed to offer games of chance via the Internet. All others are illegal. In fact, however, an estimated 60 percent of online business goes to foreign companies, some of which have a license in another EU country (e.g. Malta) or operate globally from the Caribbean and elsewhere. They are effectively uncontrolled. 

2027 End of Casinos Austria's online monopoly?
The legal monopoly of Casinos Austria is therefore outdated and should be abolished, according to Entian CEO Sauer and others in the industry. Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. have also already switched to a system where several providers have been granted licenses according to certain criteria. "Finland will open up its market in 2026, at which point Austria will be the only country in Europe with a monopoly." Player protection, measures against fraud and money laundering etc. would then be even better than today, and the tax authorities would also collect more taxes. Currently, the "illegal" gambling companies only pay around 150 million euros a year into the state coffers on a quasi-voluntary basis.

The end of the monopoly could come in 2027, when the existing license will have to be reissued. And as Casinos Austria is now majority-owned by a Czech billionaire, it is also necessary to allow more competition for competitive reasons, Entain and others urge.