Share This Article
The tender for the award of the Superenalotto license and of the lottery on receipts are the measures on gaming in the Italian budget law.
As anticipated, it seems that the Italian budget law is not reserving negative surprises this year, but good news.
The Superenalotto license tender
There will be in 2017 a tender for the award of the license/s for Superenalotto since Sisal’s is expiring.
The main terms of the tender will be
- the starting bidding price will be of € 100 million;
- the duration of the license will be of 9 years;
- the consideration for the license holder will be of 5% of the amount collected from players, but bidders can bid for a lower consideration;
- the license holder will be entitled to use the telecom network dedicated to the management of the games also for the provision of other services (e.g. payment services), subject to the approval of the gambling regulator;
- the license holder shall commit to an investment plan to update the network and, if it does not comply with its terms, the amount that is not invested shall be transferred to the State; and
- in order to enable the transition between the current license holder (Sisal) and the new entrant, the regulator will assign the right of usage of the network managing the Superenalotto to the new license holder.
The Superenalotto was an extremely popular game around 10 years ago, but due to the competition from other games it became less popular. However, the major driver of its success is given by the jackpot which has recently been of € 163 millions that were awarded to a player who had bought a € 3 ticket.
We will see whether anyone will be willing to challenge the position of Sisal. And the competition might come both from abroad and from other Italian operators such as Lottomatica/IGT which was recently awarded with the Lotto license. If Lottomatica/IGT is able to become the holder of both the Lotto and the Superenalotto licenses, this might consolidate a position of leadership in both the land based market of numbering games and the payment market since Lotto and Superenalotto are an “easy” way to include shops in their payment network. However, it will be interesting to see whether any antitrust issues will arise…
The launch of the receipt lottery
A new lottery will be launched with effect from 1 January 2018. At the shops that will opt in to the connection with the system of the gambling regulator, customers will be able to participate to a new lottery at the time of the purchase of goods or services at these shops. A decree of the Ministry of Finance shall set up the technical requirements and the rules, including the potential prizes, of this type of game.
This is a new type of game which might rely on the novelty effect which is usually quite strong in Italy.
If you found this article interesting, please share it on your favourite social media!
Follow me on LinkedIn – Facebook Page – Twitter – Telegram – YouTube – Google+
