Portugal's Online Gambling Revenue Reaches €328 Million in Q2 as the World Cup Pulls In New Bettors

Portugal's regulated online-gambling market took in €328.2 million in gross revenue between April and June, its highest-ever quarterly haul, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup drew a wave of casual punters to sports betting. The figure, up 14.4% on the same quarter last year and 1.4% on the first three months of 2026, was published by APAJO (Associação Portuguesa de Apostas e Jogos Online, the Portuguese Association of Online Betting and Gaming) drawing on the second-quarter data of the sector's regulator.

Sports betting did most of the heavy lifting. Fixed-odds wagering generated €125.1 million, a 14.6% year-on-year rise, while online casino games grew at a similar 14.2% clip. New sign-ups jumped 17.7% to 248,400, and the number of active player accounts climbed 8.4% to 1.2 million — the classic footprint of a major tournament pulling occasional bettors into the market.

A growing slice for the state

The boom is lucrative for the treasury as well as the operators. The IEJO (Imposto Especial de Jogo Online, the Special Online Gaming Tax) yielded €92.1 million in the quarter, 13.4% more than a year earlier. Ricardo Domingues, who chairs APAJO's board, described the market's expansion as "solid" and "sustained" — a framing the industry favours as it lobbies against tighter advertising and stake rules.

That trajectory is now well established. Portuguese players wagered some €23 billion across 2025, and every quarter since has tended to set fresh records. Football is the engine: the same appetite that makes betting sponsors ubiquitous around the game also sits behind the multi-market fight over Liga Portugal's television rights.

The flip side is public health. Treatment demand has surged as the market has grown, prompting the state to open its first public gambling-addiction unit in Lisbon and to run a central self-exclusion portal that blocks a registered user from every licensed site at once. The record revenue and the rising caseload are two readings of the same trend.

What This Means for Expats

• Only .pt-licensed sites are legal: Betting through operators licensed in Portugal gives you consumer protection and keeps you inside the law; unlicensed offshore sites offer neither.
• Winnings are not taxed for players: Portugal taxes the operators through the IEJO, not the punter, so payouts from licensed sites do not go on your IRS return — but always keep records.
• Self-exclusion is one click: If gambling becomes a problem, the national self-exclusion register bars you from all licensed operators simultaneously, and the new Lisbon unit offers free treatment.
• Watch the marketing: Expect heavy betting advertising around football fixtures. Set deposit limits early — the tools are built into every licensed platform.

With the World Cup afterglow fading, the coming quarters will show whether the new players stick or drift away. Either way, online betting has become a fixture of Portuguese consumer life — and a steady, if uncomfortable, source of revenue for the state.

Feature image: playing cards and casino chips, illustrative. Photo by Santeri Viinamäki via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.