SRIJ Charts Q1 2026 Online-Gaming Gross Revenue at €323.7 Million — Casino Vertical Vaults 20.3% Year-on-Year as the Autoexcluídos Roster Swells 23.1% to 380,500 Registered Players

The Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (Gaming Regulation and Inspection Service — SRIJ), a unit of Turismo de Portugal, published its 1.º Trimestre 2026 statistical bulletin on the online-gaming market on 18 June, charting a 13.7% year-on-year lift in gross revenue and a 23.1% surge in the self-exclusion roster — two numbers that frame the regulator's parallel push to expand treatment capacity for problem gambling.

The headline figure: licensed operators booked €323.7 million in receita bruta (gross revenue, the difference between stakes placed and prizes paid out) across January, February and March, up €39.1 million on the homologous quarter of 2025. Quarter-on-quarter the print is softer, ticking down 4.1% from the €337.6 million all-time high posted in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Casino verticals carry the year-on-year lift

The split between the two regulated categories reset further toward jogos de fortuna ou azar (casino-style games of chance), which now account for 63.1% of gross revenue versus 36.9% for apostas desportivas à cota (fixed-odds sports betting). The breakdown:

• Jogos de fortuna ou azar: €204.2 million, +20.3% year-on-year, -4.6% quarter-on-quarter
• Apostas desportivas à cota: €119.5 million, +4.0% year-on-year, -3.3% quarter-on-quarter

Underlying turnover (volume de apostas) tells a similar story. Casino-style stakes reached €5.63 billion in the first quarter, up €964.7 million on the same window of 2025 (+20.7%). Sports-betting stakes totalled €587.0 million, an €85.1 million annual lift (+17.0%). The contrast between the casino segment's stake-volume growth and Q4 2025's record was driven by a 4.7% quarterly retreat to €5.63 billion, while sports-betting stakes ticked up 2.8% quarter-on-quarter on the strength of the European football calendar.

Tax take widens faster than revenue

The Imposto Especial de Jogo Online (Special Online-Gaming Tax — IEJO) collected by the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (Tax and Customs Authority) rose 18.6% year-on-year to €98.1 million in the quarter, outpacing gross-revenue growth as the casino segment — which faces a higher headline IEJO rate than sports betting — pulled a bigger share of the income mix. The IEJO is a destination-based levy on Portuguese-resident players, ring-fenced for the Estado via the Orçamento do Estado.

Player roster widens but self-exclusions widen faster

SRIJ's player-registry data point to a market still adding signups at a brisk clip. The cumulative roster of registered players reached 4.9 million entries at end-March, up 2.5% on the homologous read. New registrations in the quarter totalled 285,300, +10.0% year-on-year. Active players (jogadores com prática de jogo) climbed 5.7% to 1.3 million.

The stand-out number sits below those headline reads: 380,500 players are now flagged as autoexcluídos (self-excluded from regulated play), a 23.1% lift on the same point a year earlier. Autoexclusão is a voluntary registration with SRIJ that blocks an individual from accessing any licensed operator's platform for the duration of the self-exclusion period (a minimum of three months, with no upper limit). The register also extends to the territorial casino network and bingo halls. The 23.1% rise lands two days before Portugal's first dedicated public-sector gambling-addiction clinic — the Instituto para os Comportamentos Aditivos e as Dependências (Institute for Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies — ICAD) unit on Rua do Pinheiro in Lisbon — opens on Thursday 19 June 2026.

Operator count shrinks by one

The licensed-operator universe contracted by one entity in the quarter. At 31 March 2026, 17 entidades exploradoras held a combined 30 licences: 12 for apostas desportivas à cota, 17 for jogos de fortuna ou azar and one for bingo. SRIJ flagged that one previously licensed operator ceased Portuguese activity during the quarter without naming the exit. Each licence runs a three-year initial term renewable for further three-year periods under Decreto-Lei 66/2015 (Regime Jurídico dos Jogos e Apostas Online — Legal Regime for Online Games and Betting), the foundational legislation that opened the regulated Portuguese market in mid-2015.

Enforcement against illegal operators steps up

The bulletin also tallies SRIJ's enforcement push against unlicensed sites targeting Portuguese players. The first quarter logged:

• 106 closure notifications issued to operators without a Portuguese licence
• 183 sites notified for blocking by Portuguese internet service providers under Article 49 of Decreto-Lei 66/2015
• 14 case files referred to the Ministério Público (Public Prosecutor) for criminal-track follow-up

Site-blocking orders work through the Direção-Geral do Consumidor (Directorate-General for Consumer Protection — DGC) and SRIJ's joint instruction to network operators, who suspend DNS resolution to listed domains. The 183-site quarterly tally extends a steady enforcement cadence that has run since the 2015 regulated launch.

What it means for residents and operators

For Portuguese residents and foreign residents holding Portuguese tax residency, the data underline how rapidly the regulated online market has scaled. The €323.7 million quarterly print extrapolates to a roughly €1.3 billion annualised gross-revenue line, with sports betting holding around 37% and casino-style games — slots, roulette, blackjack, poker and live-dealer formats — taking the rest. Cross-border operators chasing the Portuguese market must hold an SRIJ licence, deploy a Portuguese-domiciled technical infrastructure or designated service agent, and remit IEJO directly to the Autoridade Tributária. Players using offshore unlicensed sites fall outside any Portuguese consumer-protection envelope, including the autoexclusão register, complaint adjudication via the Centro Nacional de Informação e Arbitragem de Conflitos de Consumo and the operator-funded Programa de Responsabilidade Social (Responsible Gaming Programme) treatment referrals.

The next SRIJ bulletin, covering the second quarter of 2026, is expected on the Turismo de Portugal portal in mid-September — when the 19 June ICAD clinic's first-three-months treatment-volume read will fold into the regulator's framing of the autoexcluídos trajectory.

Sources: SRIJ — Atividade de Jogo Online em Portugal, 1.º Trimestre 2026 (srij.turismodeportugal.pt); ECO — eco.sapo.pt; Lusa — lusa.pt; Decreto-Lei 66/2015.