Italian market ends 2012 with five months of decline

The Italian egaming market decline continued in the final months of 2012 as the extra expenditure provided by casino and cash poker regulation was all but wiped out, according to full year figures released from the country’s regulatory authority today.

While cash poker (up 63.6% year-on-year) and casino (up nearly 200%) saw steep rises following the products being switched on in July 2011, overall expenditure was relatively flat, rising only 1.9% year-on-year to €749.1m.

The authorisation of slots on 3 December last year, however, has shown some early promise with casino amounts staked rising 40% month-on-month to €18.9m in the final month of the year. The total also represents a year-on-year increase of 74.4%.

Following its first ever period of year-on-year decline in August, cash poker saw amounts staked fall by more than 30% in each of the final four months of the year, while tournament poker also saw double-digit decline in October, November and December.

Overall amounts staked in poker fell as a consequence, down 6.2% year-on-year to €360.6m, however poker and casino combined continue to make up the bulk of the market, with the €507.5m cumulative total representing two thirds of the market.

Meanwhile, as operators prepare for changes to bingo regulations which could come into force as soon as this summer, amounts staked for the vertical were shown to have fallen year-on-year in every month of 2012. Bingo now makes up just 5.7% of the egaming market in Italy.

While PokerStars is still the dominant poker operator in the country, with 43.2% market share for tournaments and 36.5% for cash games in the final month of the year, bwin Italia has overtaken Lottomatica to claim second place in the former category in both November and December and has just under 9% of the market.

The launch of slots in December helped also both Snai and Sisal increase their market share in the casino vertical with the former claiming almost 11% of the market last month.