Italy sportsbook turnover up 90% in February
Online sports betting stakes continue to grow although revenues flat line due to punter-friendly results
Italy’s online sportsbook stakes almost doubled year-on-year in February as the market continues to feel the benefits of recent liberalisation efforts and new market entrants.
According to figures seen by eGaming Review, sportsbook turnover during the month increased 90% year-on-year to 226.7m in February.
However, despite the near doubling of stakes, gross gaming revenues remained relatively flat at 20.2m (compared with 20.5m last year), following a string of punter-friendly results.
The hike in stakes is primarily due to an increased number of regulated players with the likes of bet365 having joined the market in the past year.
Italy has also gone through a sustained period of liberalisation with the range of bets operators can offer widened, making the market more attractive to customers previously drawn to non-licensed operators.
“The growth of the market is mainly due to the entrance of new major operators,” Giulio Coraggio, head of the Italian gambling practice at DLA Piper, told eGaming Review.
“Indeed all the major global operators are now licensed in the country and I expect that the new upcoming tax regime for sports betting will further boost the growth,” he added.
Last month it was revealed the Italian government plans to alter the taxation of online gambling products so that all verticals are taxed on a revenue basis, with sports betting, bingo and poker tournaments currently taxed on turnover.
This is expected to bring more operators to market with the likes of Sky Betting & Gaming, PokerStars and planetwin365 all expected to launch regulated sportsbooks during the course of 2015.