Italian egaming market flat despite slots boost
Slots launch contributes to casino spend rising more than 80% year-on-year but poker continues to slide
The introduction of online slots last December failed to inspire overall growth in the Italian egaming market, with a sharp increase in casino spend offset by a poker decline.
Overall spend for January-March was flat at 217.4m, however the rollout of slots saw casino revenues rise by more than 80% year-on-year in each of the three months this year, according to figures published by regulatory authority AAMS.
Figures from the casino and poker section were broken out, showing declines of 34.6% year-on-year for cash poker and 36.4% for tournament poker, wiping out the 84.7% growth for casino. Casino revenues were the lowest out of the three categories in the first quarter 2012, however the 59.8m recorded in Q1 2013 sees the vertical dwarf both cash (43.1m) and tournament (28.7m).
AAMS attributed the decline in poker to “a general decline of spending on games in Italy and…the decline in popularity of online poker in Europe”. Sports betting spend rose 29.1% largely due to a particularly high comparative payout rate in January 2012, however bingo spend fell 27.3% year-on-year while online lotteries and pool betting also both experienced double-digit decline.
Lottomatica held the highest dot.it casino market share throughout the quarter, claiming more than 15% of the market in January, February and March. Snai was the only other operator to claim more than 10% of the market, averaging 10.6% over the quarter.
PokerStars continues its dominance of online poker in Italy, claiming more than half of the poker market in March and more than one third of the cash game market throughout Q1 2013.
Bwin Italia leads the way for online bingo, holding a 21.5% share of the market in March, while Lottomatica remains the leading dot.it sportsbetting operator with an average share 15.2% for the same month.
Italy’s betting exchange regulations are due to finally come into force at the end of this month, with Betfair and Microgame poised to pursue licences for the product. Neither has a sports market share above 1% at present.