Intralot powers Betsson's Italian launch
Intralot Italia provides Swedish operator with gaming platform and customer facing portal.
Intralot will provide the technology behind Betsson’s Italian-facing online casino, StarCasino.it, it has announced this morning.
The agreement will see Intralot provide the Swedish operator with its gaming platform, as well as the software and system infrastructure to connect to Sogei, the IT body that provides technology support to the Italian government in order to monitor and assess issues such as taxation.
A year earlier Betsson announced it was in talks to explore a potential joint venture with G.Matica Srl in Italy, the gaming division of Alma Viva, one of the country’s largest IT companies with more than 20,000 employees.
G.Matica holds an online gaming licence in the Italian market and operates online through its Gbet.it site. The JV was meant to “further develop” both companies’ online businesses within the Italian market, a statement read at the time, however Betsson withdrew from the deal for unknown reasons in March this year seemingly undecided as to which strategic approach to take.
Betsson gained its Italian licence in February this year with CEO Magnus Silfverberg (pictured) confirming at the time that the Italian operation would follow a B2C rather than a B2B strategy. Silfverberg added at the time that Betsson would begin marketing in Italy in the first half of this year.
Betsson’s general director for Italy, Fabio Angeli Bufalini, said: “The choice to co-operate with Intralot as a B2B technological partner allowed us to launch our vertical casino website in a very short time, through a tailor made product for the Italian market. We’re satisfied with the work carried out and we’re confident that we will continue to collaborate in order to achieve new positive results in the years to come.”
Enea Ruzzettu, CEO of Intralot Italia, added: “We’re very pleased with Betsson’s decision to select Intralot as their successful gaming platform provider. We will work in order to fully support the requirements of our partner by maintaining our highest levels of technical excellence in this state-of-the-art platform and in our services.”
Earlier this month Betsson announced it had launched Evolution Gaming’s live dealer offering on its Italian site, with several blackjack variants available and a standard live blackjack offering to follow, featuring native Italian dealers.
Intralot entered the German sports betting market this week after it was selected, along with Scientific Games International, to run Oddset’s retail and interactive operations. Oddset is the newly established entity designed to modernise and develop existing sports betting operations in Germany through the national retail network of the Deutsche Lotto und Toto Block lotteries, which is comprised of 23,000 points of sale.
Earlier this month the company was also selected by Hrvatska Lutrija, the Croatian State Lottery, as its strategic partner for the lottery’s new iCasino Project. The Croatian Lottery and Intralot will jointly manage the interactive casino business on a shared-profit basis for a period of four years.