uguese land-based casino operator, Sociedade Figueira Praia, has been awarded the ninth online gambling licence by the Serviço Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal (SRIJ).

In its announcement, the SRIJ confirmed the issue of the ninth online licence to Sociedade Figueira Praia, who plan to operate online casino gaming under its existing Casino Portugal brand. This news follows the firm receiving an online sports betting licence from the SRIJ in June.

Chairman of Sociedade Figueira Praia’s parent company Amorim Turismo, Jorge Armindo Teixeira, said the firms expansion into the online casino gambling arena was aiming to “consolidate the growth achieved in the first months of exploitation of sports betting”.

Eight of the nine online licences issued by the SRIJ are shared between four companies, including the Sociedade Figueira Praia. The other current licence holders are the Betclic Everest Group, BET Entertainment Technologies and Estoril Sol, all of which operate both casino gaming and sports betting sites. The sole Portuguese online poker licence is currently held by industry heavyweight PokerStars.

Following Portugal’s move towards regulated operations in 2015, the Portuguese online gambling industry has grown to an estimated market value of €82.2m, in the period May 2016 - March 2017 according to figures released in June by the SRIJ. Its report revealed that the countries licenced operators generated a total of €31m during the first quarter of 2017, up 13.7% from the previous quarters €27m.