Bet365, PokerStars and Lottomatica earned top honors in Italy’s online sports betting, poker and casino markets over the first half of 2016.
According to stats published by Italian gaming news agency Agimeg.it, online sports betting turnover in the six months ending June 30 totaled €1.92b, up nearly 50% from the same period last year. Overall online and land-based sports turnover was up 28.5% year-on-year to €3.5b.
The online wagering surge reflects recent tax changes, the introduction of new betting options and new betting operators, including market leader Bet365, which handled sports wagers of €687.3m, more than three times the €197.6m handled by its closest online competitor, Gala Coral Group’s Eurobet brand.
Four other operators scored over €100m, including domestic operator Sisal (€144.5m), William Hill (€140.3m), Snai-Cogetech (€133.5m) and the newly fused Paddy Power Betfair (€106.8m). Italian operator Better-Totosi narrowly missed out on this nine-figure club with €98.4m.
Italy’s online casino revenue grew 36% year-on-year to €208.9m, of which 11.75% was claimed by Lottomatica. Sisal was well back at 8.7%, while William Hill earned 6.9%. Despite having only launched its online casino vertical in May 2015, PokerStars scored an impressive fourth-place finish with 6.33%, just edging out Bwin Italy’s 6.3%.
PokerStars utterly dominated the online poker tournament charts, controlling nearly 72.5% of the market. Lottomatica ranked a very distant second at just 6.55%. The overall online tournament market was worth €36.8m in H1, down 3.3% from H1 2015 and the slide is accelerating, going from €7.1m in January to just €5m in June.
Stars had a slightly less firm but no less dominant grip on the poker cash game market, which was worth €37.9m in H1, down from €44.7m last year. Stars’ share was 48.2%, well ahead of runner-up People’s Poker at 7.38%, who just managed to stay ahead of Lottomatica’s 7.34%.
