Italian poker at lowest since cash game launch
Egaming revenues decline year-on-year for first time in 2012 but sports betting sees second successive month of growth on 2011 numbers.
The Italian egaming market has seen a year-on-year decline in gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first time in 2012 following a downturn in the performance of online poker and bingo.
Poker revenues declined year-on-year by 30.1%, with August’s 23.4m total the lowest since cash games were introduced to the dot.it market, while bingo saw an eighth successive month of double-digit decline compared to the corresponding period in 2011.
Some balance arrived in fixed-odds sports betting, however where the 9.7m total represented an 18.5% year-on-year increase on August 2011 and the highest GGR from the vertical since April. Horse betting was also up year-on-year, but the 0.96m total was lower than in any of the previous three months.
Casino table games experienced a 45.2% year-on-year increase as more games have begun to be offered by more licensees in comparison to last year, with GGR reaching eight figures in every month since December 2011.
Italian regulator AAMS, which was forced to merge with the country’s customs authority in June, will hope the impending introduction of slots and exchange betting brings about an upturn in the market’s performance around the turn of the year.
While slots in general are yet to see the light of day, those with non-spinning reels are permitted due to a loophole in Italian law, meaning the likes of GameAccount Network have been able to introduce products ahead of the more widespread opening in December.
Meanwhile, market share figures from August show that PokerStars has continued its dominance of tournament and cash poker in the dot.it market, increasing its piece of the pie from 41.7% to 44.2% in the former, and from 29.3% to 32.2% in the latter.
Lottomatica is the only other operator with a market share of greater than 10% for cash poker, while in tournament poker only Lottomatica (8.9%), bwin Italia (8.3%) and Snai (5.1%) join Stars in crossing the 5% threshold.
The Italian operator also leads the way for casino table games with 21.2% of the market in August, with a further six operators (bwin Italia, Snai, Sisal, William Hill, Winga and 888) sharing 45% between them. Bwin Italia accounted for almost one quarter of the Italian bingo market during the month, although Lottomatica (15.3%), Tombola (12.8%) and Sisal (10.3%) all maintained their strong positions from July to August.
In sports betting Lottomatica’s 18.7% market share puts it clear of bwin Italia and Sisal, both of which accounted for more than 10% of the market.