Online growth puts Italian sports betting in the black
Amounts staked online rise nearly 10% year-on-year " far exceeding overall rise of 2.37%.
The Italian online sports betting market has seen a 9.7% year-on-year increase in amounts staked, regulator AAMS has announced in its full-year-figures for 2012.
The level of growth “ up from 1.13bn 2011 to 1.23bn – helped drag the country’s overall sports betting market into the black, growing by 2.37% following flat year-on-year growth from land-based sports betting. Overall amounts staked on sports in 2012 came in at 3.94bn, compared to 3.85bn in 2011.
A report from AAMS suggests certain bets, while formally defined as online betting, are in fact “substantially…on the physical network”.
However in-play betting has also demonstrated notable growth, with the number of events available for live betting rising 54% year-on-year to 5,323.
Three operators made up nearly two thirds of the Italian sports betting market. Snai holds the highest market share at 31.1% with Lottomatica (20.7%) and Sisal (13.2%) its nearest challengers.
Online market share was not stripped out, however figures for July and August last year showed Lottomatica to lead the way with an 18.7% share, followed by bwin Italia and Sisal.
June was the month which experienced by far the greatest growth, with the 58.2% year-on-year increase attributable in part to the European Football Championships, in which the Italian national team reached the final. Some 12.6m was bet on the final itself, with 2.9m wagered online.
Only three other months saw double-digit increases – September (12.1%), November (19.2%) and December (14.9%) – making up for a decline of more than 20% in each of the first two months of the year. July and August saw single-digit growth despite the 19.7m wagered on the Olympic Games by Italian punters, an increase on the 2008 games in Beijing.
Football betting still contributes the lion’s share of the vertical, with 986m in online amounts staked contributing to an 87% market share across both online and land-based channels. More than 154m was staked on the European Championships across online and retail, representing 4.5% of Italy’s football betting market.