Lockdown effect now theoretically vanished, but in Italy the good time of casino games continues, that is games of chance with fixed odds and solitaire cards.
In August, according to Gioconews.it calculations on operator data, the expenditure was of €94,804,208, a result that is obtained by subtracting the winnings, €2,475,033,326, from the collection, €2,569,837,534. Last month there were 29,231,675 plays.
Compared to the €67,051,083 spent in August 2019, the growth was 41.4 percent, while the figure for August was in line, indeed slightly up compared to the €92,973,815 in July 2020.
MARKET SHARES - As for the August market shares (relative to the expenditure), Reel Italy Ltd is at the first place, with 12.41 percent, while Sisal Entertainment holds 8.19 percent and Lottomatica 7,79 percent. Snaitech Spa closely follows, with 7.73 percent of the market.
Online poker of August 2020 holds the numbers of the collection compared to the previous month, that of July, and with a growth compared to 2019. The theory that many experts had advanced on our pages, especially from the Politecnico di Milano's Osservatorio dei giochi, seems to be confirmed: after the boom in March and April in full lockdown for the containment of Covid-19, a good percentage of the increase in gaming would have remained in the sector, as well as in all the digital of Italy, which exponentially grew in those months.
So, online poker tournaments collect €76.3 million, they distribute 70.1 and 6.2 million of expenditure. Collection falls from 80.9 million but expenditure loses very little compared to 6,149 million in July 2020.
Cash games collect €184.4 million, distributing €179.4 million, with approximately 5 million of expenditure. There is an increase compared to July, when 178.8 million were played and the expenditure is stable even if it slightly grows by around €80 thousand. But the plus sign is still to be celebrated as the month of August is usually the worst for poker rooms in Italy.
And compared to last year? Mtt poker in August 2019 had lost -4.9%, with an expenditure of 5.3 million compared to 5.6 million in August 2018. The expenditure in 2020 is even higher than that of two years ago, a good sign even if the numbers have returned to the standard ones of the "unhappy" decrease, that continued unstoppable before the lockdown.
Poker cash, on the other hand, had recorded a -4.5%, going from an expenditure of 4.8 million to 4.6. In total, in the first 8 months of 2019 this market recorded an expenditure of €629.7 million, with an increase of +12.9%, compared to the 557.8 million spent from January to August 2018. Online casino increases, which went from 458.8 million to 537.4 (+17.1%), while tournament poker (-4.6%) and poker cash (-9.5%) decrease.