Sports betting, casino and poker lead Italian market recovery
Italy's remote gaming market is now 2.8% larger than at this time last year, boosted by a 322% growth in revenue last month from fixed odds sports and a 56% increase from poker and casino.
A 75% growth in revenue last month saw the Italian market return to positive growth for 2011, according to the latest monthly dataset from Italian regulator AAMS.
Egaming gross gaming revenue (GGR) in October 2011 reached 80.38m, 75.2% up on the 45.88m generated in October 2010. The Italian remote gaming market is now 2.8% larger at the start of November 2011 than at the corresponding time last year.
Growth was driven by a huge 322% YoY increase in fixed odds sports betting from 5.75m to 24.27m, and a 55.8% increase in revenue from poker (tournament and cash), casino table games and other skill games, from 31.65m to 49.3m.
Following the addition of casino and cash poker component into this product grouping from August of this year, poker, casino, and skill games accounts for by far the largest share of activity of activity monitored by AAMS, accounting for 57.5% of GGR from January to the end of October, ahead of fixed odds sports betting with 29.1%, and bingo with 7.9%.
The fall in bingo’s overall share of the market however reflected its continued year-on-year decline, as GGR fell 23.1% year-on-year from the 5.22m reported in October last year to 4.01m last month.
As reported by EGRMagazine.com, AAMS is also preparing a crackdown on offshore operators via financial institutions and a blacklist of sites, aimed at blocking offshore operators from taking Italian players.