Gambling in Italy: Lottomatica Group achieves record market share after SKS365 acquisition
The group’s Q3 trading update reports a 19 per cent rise in revenue year-on-year.
Italy.- Lottomatica Group says it has obtained a record 30 per cent share of the Italian gambling market following its acquisition of SKS365 in April. Its Q3 trading update shows revenue for the year to date stands at €1.42bn, a rise of 19 per cent year-on-year.
The quarterly update reports a betting volume of €27.7bn. Online bets made up 62 per cent and generated €543m in revenue, a rise of 52 per cent year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA was up 25 per cent at €483m.
The group said synergies from the SKS365 integration had surpassed expectations and that 50 per cent had already been achieved. Lottomatica now forecasts full-year revenue of €2bn and adjusted EBITDA of between €700m and €730m.
CEO Guglielmo Angelozzi said: “We are very pleased with the progress achieved so far this year. Our business has experienced double-digit growth, and in Q3 our online market share reached an all-time high across all verticals. The integration with SKS is advancing at a fast pace, and we upgraded the level of synergies we expect to extract.”
Italian gambling reforms
Italy’s proposed gambling reforms will face more scrutiny after the European Commission (EC) extended the standstill period on the legislation due to input from Malta. The EC had opened a consultation on the proposed gambling reforms in August. The standstill period has now been extended until November 18 to allow time to consider a detailed opinion from the Maltese government.
Italy’s proposed reforms would set a framework for new online gambling tenders. Malta’s concerns centre on technical and compliance requirements for B2B businesses. The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) argues that these would represent “unnecessary barriers” to B2B providers like system and platform suppliers since they would duplicate requirements.
