Efbet has been given the green light to enter the sports betting and casino market in Italy by Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) – the country’s gambling regulator.
This is just the latest part of efbet’s expansion strategy, with the Bulgarian sportsbook and casino operator having already obtained licences for Romania, Serbia and Spain.
Having signed the official papers for the Italy licences last Friday (17 October), efbet now has nine months to fulfil the technical requirements set out by the ADM (formerly AAMS) to become operational.
However, it has set itself a more ambitious target than the July cut-off. According to Boyan Naydenov, the company’s co-founder and COO, the team – with the support of its external partners – is working towards a goal of being live by the end of Q1 2020.
Naydenov, who founded the family-owned business in 2006 alongside his brother Tzvetomir and father Stefan, added: “We are excited about the opportunity to enter the Italian market, which audience is widely regarded as one of the most passionate about sports and gaming.
“After having successfully launched for other international markets such as Romania, we are confident to measure ourselves against the other big brands in the industry.
“Our company has a proven track record of offering a product with excellent platform user experience, attractive odds offered by our own trading and risk management team, loyalty program, quick verification and payment of winnings. All this combined with our agility and local approach will be the key success factors we rely on.”
It has been a turbulent 12 months for the Italian gambling market. Significant tax increases for sports betting – both online and retail – were followed by confirmation of the blanket ban on gambling advertising, effective from this July, before the country’s new government laid out new plans to establish tougher payment processing laws earlier this month.
efbet is in support of these latest laws which, once passed, will prohibit Italian banks from processing any transactions associated with non-authorised gambling operators, because it will help them to stand out against the ‘grey market’ competition.
