Neue exklusive Serie auf Casinos.ch
Marco Felice Baranzelli schreibt in dieser neuen Serie exklusiv für Casinos.ch über
den Italienischen Gaming Market. Dieser gilt dank der noch jungen Liberalisierung
und der unglaublichen Spielfreude der Einwohner (mit über 1400 Euro grösster pro Kopf
Wetteinsatz der Welt!) als einer der Zukunftsmärkte in Europa schlechthin.
Marco Felice Baranzelli ist ein echter Insider, denn er war früher selber Casino General
Manager und ist heute als anerkannter Berater in der Gaming Industrie tätig.
Mit seinem Know-How und Insider Wissen ermöglicht er uns einen interessanten Einblick in
die mögliche Zukunft dieses Marktes.
Hier nun sein sechste Bericht zum Italian Gaming Market:
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Italian gaming market: economic expectations and recent developments.
“Growth factors”
Italian gaming markets represents 9% of the world gaming market and is the biggest
market in the world for average spend per capita. In year 2007, Italian gaming
markets accounted for 2% of gross domestic product, and in certain geographical areas
this percentage is even higher: especially in Southern regions as Sicilia, Campania,
Sardegna e Abruzzo, gaming industry “collects” nearly the 6.5% the local domestic
product.
The quick acceleration of the market growth trend is basically due to deep changes
incurred in the Italian social and economic environment.
Four main factors can be listed: internationalization, technology, high speed,
concentration.
Internationalization forced the “traditional market” to deep changes.
Totocalcio, for instance, one of the most popular games as derived by sport (football)
bets, is now declining as no more in line with the markets attitudes. On the contrary
new slots faced successfully the new market needs. Internationalization determined
uniform gaming habits and attitudes and generated standardization of the product
portfolio
High speed is nowadays part of the life quality and in the gaming market is direct
consequence of the internationalization: instant lottery (Gratta&Vinci) introduced in
Italy in 1994 experienced a great success
Highest jackpot highest expectations=highest bets: up scaling and growing jackpots
generated a broadening of the market and the establishment of spontaneous gaming
community/association who put together to afford increasing expenditure in gaming
Technology determined and still determines habits mutation, life style and ethics
changes. Basic informatics skills make to access to virtual casinos and sports bets easy
Is that all gold?
Italian gaming market is definitively considered the most attractive in Europe. There
are several good reasons to perceive Italian market as the best performer in the near
future:
. First of all another phase of liberalisation is expected in the near future that will
go even further than the steps planned for 2007
. Growing relevance of foreign operators - A large majority of the experts believes that
by 2010 international operators, will capture a relevant share of the gaming market
. Growth potential, especially for retail betting and interactive gaming - Overall,
Italy’s gaming market is expected to grow over Euro 61 billion (turnover) by 2010 (+45%
vs 2007).
The Italian gaming market growth will be driven by new slots, online gaming and
sports betting, which benefit more and more from live betting, new bets, technological
innovation and on line betting.
Sports betting – a successful mix of distribution, branding and technology: +116%
Sport betting is predicted to further benefit from the deregulation and achieve 5.6
billion euro in 2010 (+116% vs 2007). Main growth factors are:
. opening of new point of sales
. a wider and more balanced geographical distribution of point of sales
. diverse branding options availability
. technological development (high speed connections and online payments)
. broadening of the product portfolio
New slots market: new generation means +49%
By the end of year 2010, slots total turnover should be reaching more than 28 billion
euro (+49% vs 2007).
New slots are expected to further improve their amazing turnover growth trend: from year
2003 to year 2007 new slots accounted for around 50 billion euro and thanks to the new
generation slots (comma 6a) expectations are even rosier. Indeed, year 2007 was a black
year “annus horribilis” for the new slots as around 50% of the machines installed on the
market was withdrawn or sequestered as illegal: nevertheless total turnover rocketed to
18.8 billion euro, +22% vs previous year. Moreover, new slots comma 6a generation, which
will replace the old new slot comma 6, have much more potentiality and are much more
attractive: double bet and more than double potential turnover.
Illegal gaming: still a matter of 21 billion euro
The expected remarkable growth of the Italian gaming market over the next 3 years is not
just due to an increased appeal and innovation/technological rate incorporated in the
gaming product mix, but also to the rising fight against illegal gaming carried out by
authorities.
Indeed, there is till room enough to intervene: sports illegal bets still gathered more
than 6.500 million euro in 2007 compared to the 2.400 million euro “legal” bets. Illegal
videopoker turnover in 2007 achieved the remarkable amount of 9.000 million euro. The
above underlined figures show that there is “room enough” for a fast and progressive
rise of sports betting and slot markets (see Tab. 1).
Tab. 1
Illegal and legal market estimate in Italy - 2007
Written by Marco Felice Baranzelli
Gaming industry consultant
Formerly casinos General Manager
And official Partner of the Casinos.ch Network
Marco Felice Baranzelli is specialised in company start up and or company restructuring.
So he achieved the turnover for the Casino Lugano within 3 years from a loss of CHF 4 to
a profit of 9 Mio. Mio. and within just 8 months he wiped off losses from Casino
Campione and turned it into a net profit. and of course he is a real insider of the
Italian Gaming Market.
Information von Richard Honegger
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