Sports betting drove Poland’s regulated gambling market in 2017, according to a new report by the country’s Ministry of Finance.

Last Friday, the MoF issued its annual review of the country’s regulated gambling market, which saw overall gambling turnover of PLN12.9b (US$3.5b) in 2017, a 22% improvement over 2016’s turnover figure. The government’s tax take improved 17% to PLN1.64b over the same span.

The Polish market remains dominated by casinos (PLN4.8b, +13%) and lottery operations (PLN4.6b, +1.4%), but sports betting stole the show, posting annual turnover of PLN3.4b, a year-on-year improvement of 105%, which pushed betting’s share of the overall market from 15.7% in 2016 to 26.4% in 2017.

The betting boom was spurred in part by a 29% rise in the number of retail betting outlets, but Poland’s newly regulated online betting market was the vertical’s prime mover.