Italian gaming industry news site Agimeg.it reports that Bet365 garnered more than one-third of all online sports wagers handled by Italian-licensed operators in the three months ending March 31, roughly on par with Bet365’s performance on the FY15 charts.
Italian-licensed online operators reported total sports wagers of €970m in Q1, of which €346.2m (35.7%) was wagered with Bet365’s local site. The next closest operator, Gala Coral Group’s Eurobet brand, was a very distant second with €101.3m (10.4%), while third place went to William Hill with €75.9m (7.8%).
The rest of the online top-10 reads as follows: Sisal €71.3m (7.3%), SNAI-Cogetech €68.4m (7%), Lottomatica €50.4m (5.2%), Paddy Power €45.2m (4.7%), Bwin €44m (4.5%), GoldBet €33m (3.4%) and Unibet €13.8m (1.4%).
Perhaps not surprisingly, Bet365 also scored top marks on the list of sites offering the best value for punters, with an average payout of 94.8%, followed by Unibet (93.5%) and William Hill (93%). At the other end of the scale, Goldbet and SNAI-Cogetech were the worst places to wager, with the sites reporting average payout ratios of 85.5% and 86%, respectively.
Agimeg didn’t break out individual operator stats for the virtual betting sector, but did note that virtual wagering revenue improved 11% from Q1 2015 to €47.2m, while the still nascent exchange betting vertical rose 40% year-on-year to €875k.
The land-based sports betting business handled wagers totaling €788m, of which €189.2m was handled by SNAI-Cogetech, while Lottomatica claimed second place with €133.4m and Eurobet not far behind with €126.4m.
Sticking with land-based operations, Italy’s four casinos reported combined revenue of €76.4m in Q1, led by Casino di Venezia with €25.2m. Slots accounted for 62.4% of Q1 casino revenue.