Italy iGaming Dashboard – April 2019

Italy's online gaming market has posted declines for both February and March, largely due to fluctuations in the core online casino and sports betting verticals, according to the latest figures from Ficom Leisure.

We did not publish an Italian iGaming Dashboard covering February’s figures as a result of the country’s regulator not providing bingo data for the month. As there has been another delay in publishing bingo figures for March, we have decided to provide estimates on the bingo market.

These estimates are based on trends seen in previous years, which suggest that the bingo market traditionally declines in February, before returning to growth in March. February’s data is included in the dashboard at the bottom of the page.

Italy’s igaming market posted month-on-month declines in revenue for February and March, largely due to fluctuations in the country’s online bingo and sports betting markets.

According to figures provided exclusively to iGamingBusiness.com by Ficom Leisure, estimated total market revenue fell to €145.6m in February, a 1.8% decline from January.

This was largely the result of a drop in online casino revenue, down 14.6% month-on-month, with growth in online wagering (up 18.9%) mitigating this to some extent. February proved to be a particularly successful month of Italy’s sports betting sector, with total online and retail gross gaming revenue up 28.4% to €160.0m including a €90.9m contribution from retail.

Poker reported declines across cash games and tournaments, while February is traditionally a slower month for bingo.

However sports betting failed to continue its momentum in March, contributing to total estimated market revenue falling 3.7% to €140.2m. Online sports betting revenue declined following its strong showing in February (down 24.7%), with retail down 40.2% to €54.4m. Sports betting revenue across both channels was down 33.5% to €106.4m.

Casino recovered to post an 18.4% increase in revenue to €72.6m, as did poker cash game revenue, though poker tournaments were flat month-on-month. We estimate that bingo revenue for March would have improved slightly on February’s €2.8m estimate, with a mean average growth rate of 6.5% for the month suggesting a total of around €3.0m.

All data and figures are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.

Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard. It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard, on the Danish market in the Denmark iGaming Dashboard, and on the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.