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The Italian gaming market is rapidly growing according to the official data for 2016 published by the Ministry of Finance.
The figures of Italian gaming market
The Italian Ministry of Finance published the official data relating to 2016 which reveal that the GGR of the whole market was of € 19.16 bn with an increase of € 11.4% compared to 2015.
54.7% of such data has been generated by video lotteries and AWPs that reached € 10.4 bn with an increase of 10%, if compared to 2015. In particular, AWPs generated € 7.4 bn with an increase of 12.7%, while video lotteries generated € 2.7 bn with an increase of 3.9%.
Sportsbetting achieved, through online and land based channels, € 925.7 million with an increase of 20.6%, if compared to 2015. Likewise, bets on virtual events reached € 191.4 million with an increase of 6.27%.
With reference to online casino and poker games, they reached an aggregate GGR of € 579.7 million with an increase of 20.8%.
What to expect in 2017?
There are no indicators of a slow down of the Italian gaming market. The VLT and AWP markets might be impacted by a potential increase of the applicable taxation. However, as previously mentioned, I really doubt that this change will be eventually approved since the Italian accounting court has previously raised its concerns on the potential benefits in terms of tax entries of a further tax increase.
A big question mark is around the timing of the tenders for new online gaming licenses as well as new betting shop licenses. The former is expected to be launched by the end of Q1 2017 and therefore in the coming days. On the contrary, for the betting shop tender it is seems that the agreement between the Government and the municipalities on the location of gaming halls/betting shops, which was the reason of the delay, is almost reached. Therefore the delay should not be long.
The market is growing despite of its uncertainties which is very good. As usual, we will have to watch it closely to follow future developments.
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