Italy Shrinking but PokerStars Dominating

Italy Shrinking but PokerStars Dominating

Thursday, 23 April 2015

The latest figures for Italy's ring-fenced online poker market have just been released and, according to the Customs and Monopoly Agency, PokerStars Italy is dominating the market. However, despite this upturn in fortunes for PokerStars, the country's poker industry as a whole continued to suffer a financial downswing.

Thanks to continued efforts by the Italian government to crackdown on illegal operators, PokerStars has continued to thrive despite a contracting economy according to a breakdown of March 2015's takings. In terms of overall revenue, PokerStars commands a 70% market share in a general sense, and a 54% share of the country's cash game revenue.

However, the numbers also revealed that cash game revenue is down by almost 25% (€8.1 million) compared to March 2014. This is mainly due to a lack of games and high taxation; fortunately, however, it's not all bad news for Italy's operators.

Online MTTs raked in €66 million for the country's collection of sites which is roughly in line with the amount of money collected at the same point in 2014.

In essence, the latest online poker report is a tale of two fortunes. For PokerStars the latest figures show a traffic flow which is 202% larger than the rest of the Italian market. However, this dominance is one that's taking place in a market that's currently struggling to attract cash game players at any meaningful level.



Tags: Italy, regulation, PokerStars, poker business