AAMS reveals huge sports betting decline in January figures

Italy’s online sports betting revenues have nosedived in the last 12 months according to regulator AAMS’s latest figures, which show significant decline in almost all verticals, though strong performance in poker and casino helped the market grow slightly compared to the same period in 2011.

Fixed odds sports betting saw a 71.7% year-on-year decline in gross gaming revenue (GGR), down from €18.96m in January 2011 to €5.36m, with amounts wagered down from €137.8m to €105.1m, down 24% from the previous year. An industry-wide horse racing industry strike, which saw market-leader Snai’s revenues for the vertical drop 50%, hit horse betting GGR, which declined by 54.4% for the month to €0.56m. Totalisator betting also saw GGR decline by more than half, down 51.7% with amounts wagered falling 26%.

Fixed odds sports betting and horse racing are currently taxed at 3.5% of turnover.

Bingo, which is currently taxed at 12% of turnover, saw revenues drop from €6m to €4.74m for the month. This was followed by similar declines in Superenalotto and Win for Life games, down 27.6% year-on-year; while scratchcard revenues fell from €1.13m to €0.74m.

Despite significant decline in all but one vertical, revenues from skill games, card games and games of chance were up by 49%, from €35.3m in January 2011, before legislation passed, to €52.5m, though figures for individual products was not broken out. This was driven by a large increase in amounts wagered, which climbed 365% to €1.4bn for the month.

This helped the Italian egaming market attract total revenues of €65.2m for January 2012, 0.8% up on takings of €64.7m for January 2011. The figures are the first released since rumours of a change in the rate of tax on poker and casino emerged earlier this month, which would have seen both categories switch from a 20% gross profits model to a 1% turnover tax, similar to sports betting and bingo.