Overview of the Italian Gambling Industry
Dating back to the days of the Roman Empire, gambling has existed in Italy for thousands of years. Being considered one of the more liberal countries, it is only normal that gambling is still legal, although it was not always so lenient on the subject.
The Agenzia delle Dogan e dei Monopoli (ADM) is the regulatory state authority that revises all forms of gambling in the country. Things started going well for the industry in 2006 when the country introduced legislation permitting a variety of sports betting services to be offered online and in retail locations. The 2007 Finance Act came next, further regulating online gambling to allow for poker tournaments.
In 2009 is when the real change came with the Abruzzo Decree. This was a big step forward, permitting fixed odds games of chance and additional online poker tournaments and ring games. Now, there are over 200 gambling sites available to Italy, 150 of which are online casinos. A more recent legislative measure was introduced in 2019 – the total ban on advertising in all sectors.
Until recently, there were 4 land-based casinos in Italy. In 2018, Casinò di Campione went bankrupt and closed its doors officially in early 2019. The remaining 3 continue fighting against the difficult economic fortunes of the last few years.
From 2017 through 2019, the average amount wagered yearly excluding online gambling is roughly €74.76bn. The average amount won by gamblers per year during the same period is around €57.27bn.
Online gambling brings a smaller revenue to the country as smaller amounts are staked at web-based casinos in Italy. The average amount wagered over the same period of time is €31.62bn per year, while the average amount won by gamblers yearly is around €29.97bn. The average Gross Gaming Revenue for online gambling is around €1.657bn per year, with 2019 being a more prosperous year with a GGR of €1.8bn.
During this period of time, Italy gained a yearly average of €10.7bn from tax revenues derived from gambling-related activities. The highest tax revenue for that period of time was gained in 2019, with a total of €11.4bn.
Online Market Segmentation by Game Type
Public Opinion of Gambling in Italy
Online Market Segmentation by Game Type
In 2019, the total GGR for the year was estimated at around €19.45bn. Online gambling contributed €1.8bn in GGR and land-based betting brought €857.1mn to the table. Online sports betting put in €730mn while card games and fixed-odds games brought in €835mn.
The two largest contributors in 2019 were gaming machines and lottery. Gaming machines contributed around €10.28bn, and lotteries put in roughly €5.42bn. Bingo is one of the smaller contributors, bringing €35mn in GGR in 2019.
Casino games, poker cash, and poker tournaments GGR reached €969mn in 2019, rising just over €110mn from the previous year. The GGR from horse race betting, however, dropped 9.4% in 2019. From January to August of 2020, the GGR from horse race betting in Milan, Naples, and Rome amounts to €3.96mn.
Public Opinion of Gambling in Italy
The government of Italy attempted to reduce problem gambling in 2018 when they banned all types of advertising in the sector. Italy’s health agency released the results of a survey in 2018 that included over 12k adults, the largest to be conducted in the country.The survey found that 18.4m people, around 36.4% of Italians had taken part in gambling activities at least once in the past year, placing Italy in 5th place in terms of gambling participation in Europe.Out of this 18.4 m, 13m are considered social gamblers. Around 2m of the surveyed Italians are found as low-risk gamblers, while a further 1.4m are moderate-risk gamblers. That leaves 2m problem gamblers in the country.It was found that the most likely to be problem gamblers were between the ages of 55 and 64. The high-risk betters are also more likely to favor slots, video lottery, and virtual betting. It was also found that the problem gamblers tend to be smokers, alcohol abusers, and drug users, showing that people who have troubles in resisting temptations are of higher risk.
When asked about their opinions on gambling, Italian individuals had mixed opinions on the matter. There were a total of 1,013 surveys completed by persons over the age of 18.
About 1 in 10 found gambling fun and 15% of the interviewees said it was a hobby for them. Around half of the Italians interviewed stated that gambling is a waste of money.
Furthermore, 37% think of gambling as an addiction, while 35% considered it as a risk.
In May 2020, a survey on the public opinion of gambling showed that interviewees from the South region of Italy more frequently thought of gambling as a hobby. Around 20% of the participants in the survey from this region found gambling a fun activity. Moreover, 10% of the interviewees from the Islands shared the same opinion.
The same survey also analyzed public opinion according to gender. Results showed that 56% of women and 46% of men found gambling a waste of time and money. On the other hand, 22% of men and 8% of women claimed that gambling is a hobby Only 16% of men and 8% of women considered gambling as a fun activity.
When we look at the results from the survey in terms of age, we found that response from the age group of 18 to 34 more frequently thought of gambling as a risk than others. Around 44% of this age group shared this opinion, where only a quarter of the interviewees in the age group of 35 to 44 thought of gambling as an addiction. Some 30% of respondents from the age group of 45 to 54 also considered gambling as a risk, while 41% of the same group thought of gambling as an addiction.
Italy’s Largest Gambling Operators by Market Share
Italian online gambling revenue has risen by around 25% year-on-year to €537m in the second quarter of 2020. This brings the Italian igaming market to over €1bn in the first half of the year for the first time, all despite the tough year that all sectors of gambling have weathered.
Online Casino Market
Online Sports Betting Market
Online Casino Market
From July 2020, Bet365 is the leading company with its share in the Italian sports betting market of 14.17%, closely followed by Snaitech with a share of 13.92%. Bet365 is in the lead by a mere €14,000, after Snaitech reported a GGR of €16.4m. SKS365 comes closely behind the former two with 12.5% of market shares.
Sisal is fourth among the online sports betting operators, holding 11.7% of the market shares, while Eurobet comes in fifth place with shares of 10.7%. Goldbet holds 9.4% of market shares, while Lottomatica has 4.5%.
Online Sports Betting Market
In the online casino market, PokerStars holds first place with 12.23% of shares, followed by Sisal with 8.3% of market shares. In third place comes Lottomatica with shares of 7.93%, followed by Snaitech, who hold 7.54%. Eurobet holds fifth place in the online casino market with shares of 6.90%.
Snaitech is the leading operator in the online and retail sports betting sector with shares of 16%, followed by Eurobet, which takes second place with 15.5%. Sisal is next with 12.3% of shares, closely followed by Eurobet with 12.2% of market shares. SKS365 holds fifth place with 11.2% of shares, and Lottomatica takes sixth with 8.1% of shares.
Italy’s Market Sees Increase in Online Gambling in 2020
The Italian igaming market has proven resilient despite the hard times that come with Covid-19. Live sporting games, one of the main contributors to the industry, are absent courtesy of the virus.
At the beginning of March 2020, all sports championships were canceled and sports betting shops were closed. Naturally, the GGR from sports betting declined drastically. This sector generated around 71 million euros in 2020, whereas in 2019, the GGR came to over 106 million euros.
In contrast to that, the online gambling market flourished. The following month, online poker tournaments brought over double the previous years’ GGR of €7.2mn, increasing to over €16mn.In March 2019, online casinos amounted revenues of €72.6mn. This year, online casinos generated a GGR of over €92mn.
Further increases are noted in the following months, as online casino games contributed €70mn in May 2019, while in May 2020, it brought a total of around €105.5mn in GGR.Casino and slot revenue shows a 45.8% increase on a year-to-year basis in April. The revenue figures show that on a month-to-month basis there is a 4.5% rise.
The poker tournament revenue has shown the most drastic increases. With a 135% rise in May, the sector brings over 20 million euros in GGR in contrast to the €16.10m the previous month. Poker cash has also had a rise in revenues, amounting to over 11 million euros as opposed to the 9.9 million euros the month before.
Although sports betting has dropped dramatically recently, it is not completely absent. In April 2020, the revenue came to €20.90mn, under half the amount of the previous month which had already had a drastic fall in February.
The Future in Italy’s Gambling Market
The gambling market in Italy, as in other countries, has taken quite the hit in 2020, with the sports sector being the biggest victim in the industry. To fund the recovery of sports in the country, the Italian government has introduced a 0.5% tax on operators’ turnover from sports betting, including both online and retail wagers.
Italy’s ministry of finance aims to generate €40mn by the end of 2020 and go up to €90mn by the end of 2021. These sums are to be reached through the tax implementation that must be paid on a quarterly basis until December 2021. The idea is to distribute money to address urgent issues in the country’s health care system, to provide support for employers, to help the economy recover the blow following the pandemic, and to assist in the sports activities in the country.
Italian land-based and online sports betting operators find the new tax an even harder blow following the already tough time they were having. Not to mention the advertising ban that was introduced in 2020. Some find the tax inappropriate and unsustainable due to the already-sinking revenues coming in. Moreno Morasco, president of LOGiCO, points out that 1% turnover tax equals 20% gross gaming revenue tax. Adding that to the existing tax of 24% doubles the taxes paid by the gambling industry.