Lottomatica Group to be renamed GTECH
Italian egaming company describes name-change as part of plan to "integrate its business on a global level".
Milan-listed egaming business Lottomatica Group has announced plans to change its name to GTECH S.p.A, as part of what it describes as “a plan to further integrate its businesses on a global basis.”
The announcement comes as the group – which owns Italian-facing operator Lottomatica and service provider Spielo G2 – was announced as the latest recipient of a Nevada service provider licence for online poker.
The company’s land-based and online arms, Spielo International and GTECH G2, were merged in October 2011 with the combined entity renamed Spielo G2 last month.
A statement from the group explained that today’s changes are “”[A]imed at supporting growth, improving efficiency and enhancing profitability across operations, stepping up the pace of internationalization of the Group to better capture its full potential.”
Italy is Lottomatica Group’s dominant market, with the company deriving 1.88bn of its 2.97bn revenues from the region in 2011’s full-year results. While much of this comes from lotto scratchcards and video lottery terminals, the Lottomatica Scommese online arm holds the second highest market share for online tournament poker and in December was the dot.it market-leader for online casino games and fixed-odds sports betting.
Its other online activities – through Spielo G2 – include the International Poker Network, which ranks 13th for dot.com cash poker liquidity according to Pokerscout, and the Canadian Poker Network, which hosts the online offerings of the British Columbia and Quebec lotteries.