Bet-at-home awarded Italian licence
Betclic Everest subsidiary launches sportsbook offering today " casino to follow in coming weeks.
Betclic Everest subsidiary bet-at-home has been awarded an Italian operating licence following the completion of a successful trial run of the platform.
The operator has today launched a dot.it site, initially only offering sports betting, with a casino product opening in the coming weeks following regulator AAMS completing a series of technical tests on the platform. The regulator, which is to be merged with Italy’s Customs Authority as part of the government’s austerity programme, has awarded bet-at-home a licence valid until 23 November 2021.
It follows bet-at-home securing a licence to offer sports betting in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein in May this year. Its licence was almost immediately put under threat however, with the Land’s newly-elected coalition government admitting its preference to return to the State Treaty signed by the majority of the country’s 15 Länder with the exception of the breakaway northern region. Schleswig-Holstein’s new minister for the interior Andreas Breitner, however has since dismissed these concerns at least in the short-term, saying that the seven licences awarded so far would remain valid for their six-year term, while a further four to six would be issued from a backlog of more than 40 applications.
Despite being cleared to operate in Schleswig-Holstein and Italy, bet-at-home has been barred from offering its services in Denmark after the country’s regulator secured an injunction against internet service provider 3 to force it block the operator’s site. This came in a recent crackdown on unlicensed sites that has seen a total of 12 sites banned from the market and followed Betclic’s withdrawal from Portugal after a Lisbon court ruled in favour of the country’s monopoly operator Santa Casa di Misericórdia de Lisboa.
Bet-at-home’s entry into Italy follows Betclic Everest CEO Ignacio Martos’ assertion that the company is undergoing a turnaround, with the group understood to be trading ahead of budget “in terms of turnover, GGR and EBITDA,” and targeting a return to a “clear and comfortable EBITDA figure.”
Last month Martos told eGaming Review the company would turn 90m worth of losses into a springboard for recovery and a re-entry into Spain blaming the poor numbers on “an accelerated depreciation of assets,” which prompted Betclic Everest’s co-owners Société des Bains de Mer and Lov Group “to accelerate most of [the operator’s] intangibles.” This resulted in a loss of 75m for these assets, coupled with a 16m operational loss, while Martos confirmed that during this period the operator recorded gross gaming revenues (GGR) of 300m.
After a disappointing start to the year, the Italian market has shown signs of recovery, enjoying its most successful month of the year to date according to AAMS’ figures for May, with gross gaming revenue up 30% year-on-year.