Italy has a new online sports betting market leader, as Planetwin365 finally dethroned longtime champion Bet365.
Figures published by Italian gaming news outlet Agimeg.it indicate that the Austria-based SKS365 Group’s Planetwin365 brand captured 14.9% of Italy’s online sports betting market in the month of September, eclipsing perennial frontrunner Bet365, which slipped to second place with 13%. Planetwin365’s brand evidently got a boost from its new betting partnership with Italian Serie A footballers Napoli.
It was a long and impressive run by Bet365, but Planetwin365’s ambitions became apparent this spring, when the brand dethroned Ladbrokes Coral Group’s Eurobet brand for second place on Italy’s online betting charts. Eurobet ranked third on the September chart with 9.85%, ahead of Snaitech (9.44%) and SISAL (8%).
Snaitech ruled the land-based retail betting market, capturing an 18% share, easily outpacing runner-up Eurobet at 13.6%, with Lottomatica (13.58%), SISAL (11.8%), Goldbet (10.2%), Gamenet Group (10%) and SKS365 (9.9%) rounding out the retail market’s other main players.
The overall online betting market improved 31.4% year-on-year to €48.1m, while retail betting managed only a 1% rise to €69.4m. Snaitech held the top combined betting market tally at 14.5%, followed by Eurobet (12.06%), SKS365 (12%), Lottomatica (10.26%) and SISAL (10.24%).
Lottomatica held on to its spot atop the online casino games chart with a 9.35% share. SISAL ranked second with 8.5% while The Stars Group’s PokerStars.it placed third with 7.95%.
PokerStars continued to run roughshod over its online tournament poker rivals, capturing a 69.1% market share, while runner-up SISAL could manage no higher than 5.4%. Overall tournament poker spending totaled €6.8m in September, a full €1m higher from the same month last year. For the year-to-date, tournament poker spending is up 17.8% to €61.8m.
Online poker cash games were also in positive territory, gaining €800k to €5.9m in September, although the year-to-date figure is down 4.4% to €51.9m. PokerStars claimed 42.8% of September’s cash games market, while runner-up SKS365 notched 7.8%, just ahead of Lottomatica’s 7.1%.
Italy’s online poker market was expecting a boost from long-awaited implementation of liquidity sharing with the regulated markets in France, Portugal and Spain. However, it remains to be seen whether Italy ends up diving into this shared pool after some key Italian senators unexpectedly voiced strident objections to the plans last week.
