Milking the udders of the gambling industry is something that Italy is successful at doing. It’s as if they grew up on a dairy. It explains why the country’s Treasury is excitedly preparing for a new program of bids for the thousands of retail outlets that operate betting in the country.
In 12 months time, the licenses for around 1,300 sports betting shops will be up for grabs. The government confirmed that they’d be offering new concessions for 2,000 dedicated outlets. There will also be as many as 4,000 non-dedicated “corner” licenses available to offer gambling in pubs and bars. Sports’ betting is currently worth around one third of the country’s total gambling turnover and the licenses will be highly sought after.
Sports betting licensing should raise close to €150m of the expected figure of €2bn that the government is looking to raise from the licensing process over the next three years. Live poker venues are also ready to be licensed as well as new lottery products to be sold in supermarkets. Add this to the country’s burgeoning slots business and you see why overseas companies want a share of the industry that could top €40bn for the year.
It’s also understood that the government, in an effort to extract more milk from the industry, will be requiring operators to pay an upfront fee for each of the 380,000 AWP machines. It’s the same system that was put in place for the VLTs where each terminal cost €15,000 upfront.
The AAMS also announced the names of four companies who have been awarded remote gaming licenses. Poste Mobile, Interwetten, the owners of MyBet and Gnuf Ltd, a company that features a number of ex-Ongame executives were all awarded the licenses, according to the AAMS website. In addition all Italian operators have completed the technical work needed to take live cash poker and casino games online by July 18th.
