Online gambling and betting sites remain the bedrock on which copyright piracy hubs rely for advertising revenue, according to a new Spanish study.

Earlier this month, consulting firm GfK released its Piracy Observatory and Digital Contents Consumption Habits 2018 report. The report was commissioned by the La Coalición de Creadores e Industrias de Contenidos, a body representing the country’s film, television, music, publishing and videogame sectors.

According to the report, Spaniards accessed nearly 4.35b items of illegal digital content last year via file-sharing sites, a 3% decline from 2017’s report. However, the report claims this cost La Coalición members over €1.9b in lost earnings while the government allegedly lost out on €638m in taxes and fees on same.

The report claims that file-sharing sites generated over 90% of their revenue from advertising in 2018, a figure roughly similar to previous years. Asked what types of ads they remembered seeing, 50% of visitors to file-sharing sites reported seeing ads for gambling and betting operators. That’s down from 68% in 2017 but still significantly higher than the 36% who remembered seeing ads promoting dating sites or the 28% who saw ads for virtual private network (VPN) software.