Italy iGaming Dashboard – November 2018
After a surge at the beginning of the Italian football season, Italy's sports betting market dropped off slightly last month and was down significantly when compared with last October.
Online sports betting GGR fell to €56.90m in October, down from September's €60.45m and last October's €77.74m, representing a more than 25% year-on-year drop.
Casino, on the other hand, saw its highest ever monthly GGR, with the €64.91m in GGR last month representing a more than 10% jump on the previous month and an almost 25% rise on the same month the previous year.
This saw the market swing back to a position where casino is the largest online vertical in Italy, with 47.52% of the market compared with 41.65% for sports betting.
Overall, total online GGR rose to €136.6m from €132.6 the previous month. Although this was a rise on the previous month, the disappointing sports betting figures saw the overall market fall nearly 6% year-on-year.
Bet365 regained its lead in online sports betting, but looking at the leading operators when land-based revenue is included, it's clear the online giant faces challenges once the advertising ban comes into play in January.
While Bet365 holds 15.9% of the online sports betting market, once land-based revenue is included its share drops to 6.8%, with Snai, Planetwin365 and Eurobet leading the combined pack.
Given these operators will continue to be able to leverage their retail presence once the ban is in effect, it will be interesting to see how much more ground they gain over the online-only operators next year.
There was some rare good news in the poker market in Italy last month, with GGR for both tournament and cash poker rising on the month and poker's share of the igaming market nudging back towards 5% for tournaments and 4% for cash games.
This month we've expanded our market share breakdown of the poker market to show the top five operators for tournaments and the top 10 operators for cash games. PokerStars remains the leader in both markets, though its lead fell slightly last month in both areas.
Click on the drop down options below to compare how Italy's igaming market has performed on a monthly or annual basis. Revenue figures for online-only sports betting start from October 2016, with operator market shares from May 2017.
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.