William Hill is to launch online poker in Italy next week, bolstering its existing casino, sports betting and bingo offering in the dot.it regulated market.
The room will run on the same Playtech-owned software as William Hill’s dot.com platform, the bookmaker’s main gaming supplier confirmed to Casino Choice today, meaning Hill’s Italian players will be joining the largest single network player pool in the ring-fenced market, iPoker.
iPoker, which powers online rooms for operators including SNAI, Sisal, Titan and Eurobet in Italy, claimed 15.8% market share in the month of March 2013, according to calculations by Casino Choice based on data from regulator AAMS.
William Hill, which launched its Italian-facing site in July 2011, three years after exiting its unsuccessful land-based JV with Spanish gaming giant Codere in the country, recently cemented its top-five position in Italy’s online casino market following the launch of slots in December 2012, claiming a market share of 7% in March. In fixed-odds sports betting, a sector currently hindered by a prohibitive turnover tax and soon-to-be-relaxed product and market restrictions, the operator’s market share was 3.65%.
Hill’s is however entering a regulated online poker sector in Italy which displayed alarming signs of decline in the first three months of 2013, cash game revenues ending Q1 34.6% down on 12 months earlier. Global market leader PokerStars has also capitalised on the struggles of former local network leader Microgame to claim a dominant market share of 44% by March.
The boost provided by the slots launch was also not sufficient to prevent total GGR from online gambling in the ring-fenced market ending Q1 0.2% down at €217.4m, due to declines across all other major products, including poker, sports betting and bingo.
Article written by Stephen Carter
