Italy’s igaming market experienced its second-best month ever in February 2021, thanks to record online sports betting revenue at a time when retail betting shops were closed.
According to figures supplied by Ficom Leisure to iGB, revenue across all online verticals ticked up 4.6% from January to €351.2m, just behind the record set in December 2020. Compared to February 2020 – the last month before Italy went into lockdown – revenue was up 94.8%.
That month-on-month revenue growth was due mostly to a significant increase in sports betting revenue to a record high of €185.5m, as betting made up more than half of Italy’s total online revenue.
The closure of all retail betting shops across the country played a large role in this growth, but online betting revenue was also up 29.4% from January, which also had no retail betting.
Bet365, PlanetWin365, Snai, Eurobet, Goldbet and Sisal remained the six largest operators with more than 10% of the online betting market each, but there was significant change within that group. Goldbet became the market leader again, after holding that spot in December, with Sisal and Snai following, while Bet365 dropped from third to sixth.
Even without any revenue from the retail sector, overall sports betting revenue was level with February 2020, as the vertical recorded its second-best month since the first lockdown began, behind October 2020.
Turning to online casino, revenue was down 12.3% month-on-month but up 83.1% year-on-year to €143.0m. While in absolute terms this was the third-best month ever for online casino in Italy, the vertical had its lowest share of revenue since December 2017 at 40.7%.
PokerStars remained the top operator, though its share of revenue fell to 10.4%, while Sisal closed the gap as its market share grew to 9.5%. Snai, 888 and Lottomatica followed with more than 7.5% of revenue each.
Poker revenue was down from the prior three months but still well above February 2020, with tournaments bringing in €9.8m, up 43.4% year-on-year, and cash games €6.7m, up 33.5%
PokerStars continued to dominate the market, but its share of tournament revenue slipped below 50% for the first time since iGB started publishing data in 2017. This came as Sisal, Snai, Eurobet and E-Play 24/7 all saw their market shares increase.
In cash games, PokerStars increased its market share from January to 44.4%, with Lottomatica a distant second and third with 6.8% and 6.3% of the market, respectively.
All data and figures from the regulator are processed by leading European corporate advisory firm Ficom Leisure, a specialist in all segments of the betting and gaming sector.
Ficom Leisure also provides monthly figures on the New Jersey online market in the New Jersey iGaming Dashboard, Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania iGaming Dashboard and Iowa in the Iowa iGaming Dashboard, all of which are available on iGB North America.
It also provides quarterly figures on the Spanish online market in the Spain iGaming Dashboard and the Portuguese market in the Portugal iGaming Dashboard.
