Italy witnesses record revenue at €351.2m in February

Added: April 8, 2021

Italy’s iGaming scene has witnessed an impressive second-best month ever this past February as it hit record online sports wagering revenue while all retail venues were shut down.

According to reports, all online verticals witnessed a boost in revenue worth about 4.6% starting from January, up to €351.2 million, which is slightly behind the revenue record hit in December of last year. When compared to revenue of the same time last year, which was only weeks before Italy had to go into a long lockdown, revenue has risen by almost 95%.

The increase in revenue month-on-month was mainly brought on by the huge boost in revenue across the sports betting scene which attained a record high of €185.5 million, since betting accounted for over half of the country’s total online gaming revenue. A huge reason as to why this number increased so dramatically is because of the lockdown and the closure of betting shops in Italy. However, online betting revenue had increased by 29.4% compared to January, where there was also no retail betting.

The six biggest operators in the country were still Bet365, Eurobet, Goldbet, PlanetWin365, Sisal and Snai with over 10% of the online betting market held by each, however there was also some changes in the group. Notably, Goldbet has once again become the market leader, as it was in December of 2020, and Sisal and Snai came behind it, with Bet365 moving from third place to sixth.

Despite not having any revenue from retail, sports betting revenue was equal to that of February of last year, and the sector saw its second-best month since the pandemic started.

Taking a look at online casino, the revenue had decreased by 12.3% by month, however had increased by 83.1% year-on-year up to €143 million. In absolute terms, this had been the third best month ever recorded for online casino in the country. However, the sector also had its lowest revenue share since December of 2017, which was at approximately 40.7%.

Furthermore, PokerStars was still the top operator despite the fact that its revenue share decrease to 10.4%. Aside from that, Sisal caught up since its market share increased up to 9.5%. 888, Snai and Lottomatica came after with over 7.5% in revenue share each.

Additionally, Poker revenue decreased compared to the three months before, but was still higher than that of February 2020, with all tournaments contributing €9.8 million, an impressive 43.4% increase year-on-year. Cash games amounted to €6.7 million, a 33.5% boost. PokerStars has kept on taking over the market, however its share of revenue from tournaments decreased under 50%.

Italy, sportsbook