The launch of gambling in Greece and the new turnover measurement

She continues increase of sizes of the legal market games of chance and in 2024. The figures for the first two months of the year show an increase of around 10%, after last year’s increase of around 20%.

At the same time, Gaming Supervision & Control Committee (GCC) expands the way of measuring the size of the legal gambling market in Greece. She introduces the “reformed turnover”, which, as she says, better reflects the real “stake” of Greek gamblers. The reformed turnover is clearly lower than the nominal turnover which the market knows as TGR (Total Gaming Revenues) and corresponds to the total of the bets of the players.

Now the EEEP reports that much of this nominal turnover is a recycling of earnings from the player’s initial “capital”. “In online games, the amounts of winnings that are “replayed” are now multiples of those that are actually played.” Thus, the EEEP announcement continues, “we have extremely incomparable figures when considering TGR from casino tables or OPAP agencies to that of slot machines or online games.”

Reformed gaming turnover (TGR), as calculated by the EEEP, is the amount of the sum of pre-tax profits awarded to players and gross profits (GGR) remaining to providers. This amount, according to the EEEP, constitutes “the amount actually at stake” for the players.

Based on this new approach, for the two months January – February 2024, nominal turnover (TGR) amounted to 7.24 billion euroswhile the reformed and “real” turnover amounted to 2.58 billion euros. The ratio is about 1 to 3 and it is estimated that by the end of the year this ratio will increase due to the high turnover in online games.

The presentation of the reformed turnover (TGR) by the EEEP was the result of pressure exerted by the market enterprises. The pressures were a result of the media’s presentation of market sizes, which focuses mainly on nominal turnover. All actors, regardless of market (OPAP, online platforms, casinos), “complained” to EEEP that these figures distort the image of gambling in Greece and harm the image of businesses in society.

And this as with the… old measurement, in 2023 there was an annual nominal turnover in legal games of 36 billion euros, corresponding to to 17% of GDP. This size is about the same as the country’s total energy expenditure for 2022, when the prices of energy goods had skyrocketed.

But no matter how the gambling market is measured, it is certain that it is increasing month by month, year by year. Specifically, the nominal TGR shows an increase in the two months of January – February 2024 compared to the corresponding period of 2023 by 13.7%, while the reformed TGR of the EEEP increases in the same period by 9.6%. Over the same period, providers’ Gross Gaming Revenues (GGR) increased by 5.4%, while gaming tax increased by 4.4% and player tax by almost 20%.

All markets without exception are experiencing growth, with the exception of the racecourse. The most significant increase, however, is recorded in online companies, where turnover, whether nominal or restated, registers a double-digit increase.

At the same time, however, the revenues of the State also increase. Total tax revenue from gambling approached 160 million euros, suggesting it will approach 1 billion euros this year, up from about 900 million euros last year. These revenues of the state have now become very important and, for this reason, the Ministry of National Economy wants to change the way of paying the revenues of the EEEP to the coffers of the Ministry of National Economy. Instead of every month, which is valid today, it should be done more often, if possible on a daily basis.

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