Recipe for Success: Italy Played to Its Market Strengths 2016

Italy’s 2016 online results are in, and business is booming thanks to sports betting and online casinos. 

Closing Boost

December figures from the Italian market turned in by Italian gaming news agency Agimeg.it show online sports betting turnover at €391.8m for the month.

Shot in the Arm

Combined online and land-based sports betting turnover’s €770m brought the total sum wagered for the year 2016 to almost €7.5b, representing a massive year-on-year jump of 35% from 2015’s total for the year.

Land-based Contribution

Land-based betting had big fun as well, with turnover jumping almost 26% to €3.4b alongside online betting’s 46% leap to over €4b.

Bet 365 Leads Charge

Bet365 led individual online betting take at €128m, for 32.7% of the Italian market online betting share. Placing a distant second was Gala Coral’s Eurobet brand at €37m (9.5%), followed by Sisal (€32.3m, 8.2%), Snai-Cogetech (€29.8m, 7.6%) and Lottomatica (€22.7m, +5.8%).

Promising Entry

At the bottom, new entry Sky Betting & Gaming took in €600k, despite only launching its marketing in December via a stylized SkyBet.it TV campaign promoting its new iPhone app.

Online Casinos Thrill

Italian online casino revenue for December came in at €45m, bringing the 2016 total online poker take to nearly €439m for a 34% gain year-on-year.

Individual Standings

Individual online casinos share in Italy for December was led by Lottomatica at 11% share. Sisal took the second largest share at 8.5%, with Amaya Gaming’s PokerStars coming in third at 7.8%, Eurobet fourth at 6.6%, and William Hill fifth at 6.2%.

Nod to PokerStars

PokerStars continues to drive the Italian online poker market, with leading takes in both tournaments (74.4%) and cash games (46.4%) in verticals where no other operator managed to even reach double digits.

Online Poker Lags 

Nonetheless, the overall online poker market in Italy continues to decline. December’s total tournament stakes totalled €7.2m, with cash games contributing €6.5m, dropping 2016 tournament stakes 2.4% to €69.6m and cash games down 9.8% to €83.7m.

Rounding Out Contributions

Other contributing verticals included fixed-odds horserace betting (€76.5m) and online bingo (up 7.1% year-on-year to €27.3m).  

Outlook

With overall online gross gaming revenue across the Italian online gambling market rising 23 percent year-on-year to €987m in 2016, the momentum of the 30% jumps in sports betting and casino revenue appears capable in 2017 of spurring the lesser performing verticals to greater heights in their wake.