(This post had been published in Italian also on August 26th, 2015)
In the first half of 2015, on the basis of data provided by the ADM on its site, Italian gambling online sector seems to show a significant change of trend in comparison with previous four years (2011 – 2014, when the annual expenditure (i.e. GGR, margin before tax) remained substantially steady.
In the six-months-period GGR increases from 359 to 390 million euros, equal to +8.6%. On annual basis it would mean an increase from 728 in 2014 to 790 million euros in 2015. That raise fundamentally comes from changes regarding the three main games:
• casino games GGR increases from 124.4 to 153.6 million euros, equal to +24%,
• sport book increases from 107.0 to 126.4 million euros, equal to +18%,
• poker cash decreases instead from 58.0 to 44.7 million euros, equal to -23%.
GGR of poker tournament and skill, which together represent the forth main game typology, passes from 39.1 million euros to 38.1, equal to a – 3%. GGR of poker tournament is 88% of total amount, around 33.5 million euros. Unlike poker cash, tournament variant has found a balance point that can foreshadow a future (little) increase.
Casino games, sport book, poker and skill represent all together 93% of total GGR in 2015. All other games total 31 million euros in 2014 and 27.5 in 2015 that is -11%. They give little contribution to the global trend, although some of them show interesting changes:
• betting exchange GGR actually increases +450%, but the launch of that game had been done late 2014 and the amount is minimal, 1.2 million euros in the first half 2015;
• GGR of Lotto’s games show an interesting increase equal to 70%, to be attributed to the 10eLotto variant that let to bet every 5 minutes;
• horse betting GGR increases +10% reaching 7.4 million euros in the six-months period, after many years of continuous fall;
• GGRs of other games, Bingo, GrattaeVinci, Superenalotto, and also Virtual Betting, which never had been good result online, are falling.
The significant increase of total GGR seems helpful, but a more careful analysis is needed because that results both from changes in gambling activity and from gambling switch between legal and illegal channels.
Bet365, which holds now over 20% GGR market share in Italian sport book, October 2014 moved its customers from the dot.com to the dot.it market winning immediately a market share close to 20% and becoming the leader of dot.it sport book. Consequently, notwithstanding the huge increase of betting on the so called “complementary program”, i.e. the licensee program, and the related increase of live betting, there is not a real significant increase of total sport book GGR. There had rather been a shift from the dot.com to the dot.it market and a contemporary change of mix between pre-play and in-play betting. Taking into consideration bet365 entry, there has been a major shift from the ground-based channel to the online one neither, contrary to what someone says.
Casino games GGR increase totally results from the slot segment, as it is clearly showed by the data recently provided by the Politecnico di Milano. Specifically, increase of casino games is the result of a doubling of slot GGR together with a fall of card games and a steady performance of roulette games. But the increase of slot / casino games GGR is largely ascribable to the exit from the dot.com market in Italy by the major providers of casino games platforms, while it may be attribute to a true market growth a little share of total GGR increase at most.
Trends of tournament and cash variants differ, contrary of the past. Poker cash continues now to decrease and I wander if possibly introduction of international liquidity could be sufficient to reverse the trend, taking into consideration that similar, if less marked, negative performances are also showed in other western markets. It must also be noticed, on the other side, that the fall of dot.it poker cash GGR is partially due to a reverse players’ shift from the legal market to the illegal one in the last two years.
In conclusion, taking into account the shift from the dot.com market to the dot.it one, it can be estimated total Italian online gambling market (legal and illegal) is substantially steady in 2015. As well as it had been in 2014 vs 2013, as 4% increase of legal market is largely referable to the abandon of dot.com market in Italy by the early providers that agreed to the ADM’s “moral suasion” (Playtech in particular in June 2014).
In previous four-years period Italian online gambling GGR had been: 690 million euros in 2010, 735 in 2011, 749 in 2012 and at last 720 in 2013. As I said in early 2014 (https://www.egla.eu/w/portfolio-view/gioco-online-in-italia-14-nel-2013/#sthash.VskTPZrN.dpbs) “the truth is the peak of Italian online gambling had been in 2010, while the increase in the following two years had been in appearance only and the fall in 2013 had been bigger than it seems. Online gambling expenditure (i.e. GGR) increases between 2010 to 2013 from 690 million euros to 720 only because there had been a contemporary strong shift to the legal market from the illegal one.”.
Taking into account of gambling channelling from the illegal circuit to the legal one – progressively occurred thank to actions enabled by current legislation – online gambling in Italy is substantially steady also in 2015 and total online gambling expenditure is presumably lower now than in 2010, notwithstanding stark contradiction with other e-commerce sectors’ trend (2015 vs 2014: e-commerce B2C +17%, Online&Mobile Gaming +11%, Digital Content +7% – Politecnico di Milano).
