Italian market continues to suffer
Almost all verticals in decline in January to May" market shows marginal growth after introduction of cash poker and casino.
Gross gaming revenue (GGR) from online gambling in Italy has continued to dwindle, regulator AAMS has revealed, with the introduction of cash poker and casino and strong video lottery terminal (VLT) performance the only highlights in a sector where almost all other verticals have declined.
GGR from the market grew 0.2% year-on-year in the period from January to May, up from 7.47bn to 7.48. This was largely due to land-based gaming machines and online cash poker and casino which proved to be the only verticals to experience growth as high payout rates eroded revenues for the majority of the other verticals.
VLTs proved to be the standout performer, and almost solely responsible for growth in the gaming machine vertical, after turnover more than doubled, leaping from 4.23bn to 8.77bn year-on-year. This was aided by the newly-licensed cash poker and casino, with a turnover of 5.61bn for the five-month period. However, 5.45bn of this was returned to players in winnings and bonuses, meaning the vertical only contributed 157m in GGR.
A decline in turnover, however helped the bingo and lotteries sectors to post minor growth in gross gaming revenues. Bingo may have seen a 7% year-on-year drop in turnover, down from 804m to 747m, causing amounts paid to players to fall 12%, but this prompted a slight increase in GGR, rising 9% to 221m for the period. Lotteries also benefitted from a decline in turnover, which fell 5% and after winnings of 2.964bn had been subtracted, GGR stood at 1.289bn, up 0.8% year-on-year.
Despite the well-documented troubles faced by the sports and horse betting sectors, skill games was the biggest loser over the period, with revenues dropping 53% from 2011, most likely cannibalised by the introduction of cash poker and casino, and resulting in just 71m in GGR.
Sports betting turnover fell 10%, causing revenues to fall 23% to 348m, while horse betting GGR came in at just 129m, down 35% on the same period in 2011.
Such small revenues are likely to impact the country’s leading operators with the horse betting market leader Snai revealing a 97% drop in profits in its results for the three months ending 31 March 2012.
The figures were the first released since it was announced that AAMS was to be merged with L’Agenzia delle Dogane (Customs Authority) to create the Customs and Monopolies Agency as the Italy’s austerity government looks to cut costs to alleviate the worsening financial crisis engulfing the country “ a move which had resulted in the regulator’s director general Raffaele Ferrara stepping down from his role.