Denmark's online poker on two-year downward slope

These projections have resulted in a further yearly revenue estimate from Spillemyndigheden of USD 32,338,040 by year's end, a 7.7 percent decrease from 2013 and an 18.2 percent decrease from 2012.

General Casino Games Still Strong

Despite the online setbacks, general casino games remained fairly strong in Denmark. General casino gambling revenues rose 12.5 percent from USD 43,117,387 in 2013 to USD 48,507,060 in 2014.

The World Cup also provided a nice boost to Denmark's betting market, with second quarter betting revenues seeing the highest volumes since the market was regulated.

The FIFA event held every four years spurred the generation of Danish betting market revenues revenues of USD 79,946,822, representing a robust 33 percent increase from the same quarter 2013's USD 60,184,686.

Regulatory Pioneer

Part of the original appeal of the Danish market undoubtedly stems from the strong system in place for cracking down on illegal unregulated gambling sites, using domestic providers to block illegitimate sites. For example, Danish Internet service provider Three was recently instructed by Spillemyndigheden to block five suspected sites, identified as 7red.com, 7red.dk, quasargaming.com, wintrillions.com and trillonario.com.

Not only were these sites operating without licenses from the Danish government, but they had ignored previous warnings to cease operations or be locked out of the market.

Earlier similar moves by the Spillemyndigheden include the 2012 blocks imposed on 12 unlicensed gambling companies serving Danish customers including Betclic Everest subsidiary Bet-At-Home and group of Playtech-powered sites including Titan Poker. 

The Danish government was one of the first to impose systemised crackdowns on unregulated providers, but that has not sparked improved performance in the Danish regulated market as of yet, and at this juncture the Danish market does not seem immune to recent declines in online gaming across Europe's regulated markets.