The regulated online gambling market in Italy grew by 21% in February, boosted by a recovering fixed-odds sports betting market, according to new data from Italian regulator AAMS.
Remote gambling on poker, casino, bingo and sports betting generated gross gaming revenue of €78.6m in February, 20.6% up on the €65.17m figure for January and 7.7% up year-on-year, representing the second highest monthly revenue from the regulated market, behind only the record total of €80.38m generated in October 2011. The revenue increase was achieved despite a 9% month-over-month fall in total wagering to €1.37bn, from €1.51bn the previous month.
The month-over-month revenue increase was accounted for by a quadrupling of return from fixed-odds sports betting to €25.58m from €5.36m in January - a 377% increase - although this revenue total was still 24% below that recorded in February 2011, prior to its cannibalisation by the introduction of other products and by offshore sites targeting Italian punters with better prices from lower tax jurisdictions such as Malta.
The owner of one such website, London-listed GVC Holdings, however this morning announced its intention to dispose of its Malta-licensed, Italian-facing Betaland business for a nominal sum to a third party company in Malta, concluding that: “The returns on the Business no longer justify the risks involved with this operation.” Betaland is on AAMS ‘ blacklist of non Italian-licensed sites on its website, for which financial institutions and credit card comanies could face fines of up to €1.3m if caught conducting transactions with Italian players on its behalf.
The performance of fixed-odds sports in in February however helped offset a decline in revenue from the casino table games, poker and skill game segment, which together account for close to 70% of the ring-fenced online market in Italy. The €46.54m total represented a 11% fall month-over-month from the €52.54m recorded in January, although this was 55% up on the €30m recorded a year earlier due to the injection of revenue from casino table games and cash poker into the market from last July.
Revenue from casino table games dipped 15% to €9.8m in February from the peak of €11.49m recored a month earlier, ahead of the legal launch of casino slot games expected to take place in the second half of 2012. Lottomatica’s dominance in the regulated casino market in Italy continued unabated, accounting for 29.1% of total market revenue in February, ahead of bwin.party’s GiocoDigitale.it and bwin.it brands with a combined 12.2% market share and local brands Sisal with 10.3%, Snai with 9.6%, and Winga with 8.1%. UK brand William Hill’s casino also continued to perform well in Italy, increasing its market share to 6.1% from 5.6% in January. 888 however saw its market share contract sharply to 2.5% from 5.5%.
Online bingo, which continues to be hindered by a high tax rate, also continued its decline in Italy, the €4.07m revenue generated in February was some 14% down on the €4.73m generated in January and 24% down on the €5.36m total a year earlier. bwin.party-owned Gioco Digitale, the first brand into the online bingo market in Italy, continued to lead the way with a market share of 22%, rising to 26.3% when combined with the group’s other brands. Lottomatica however slowly continued to close the gap, increasing its market share to 19.5% from 18.9% in January, ahead of Sisal with 11.3% and successful UK brand Tombola with 7.4%.
As reported on Casino Choice this morning, PokerStars and Microgame retained their position as the leading online poker website and network in Italy, albeit achieved against a backdrop of month-over-month revenue declines in the cash poker and tournament poker markets of 13% and 6% respectively.
