Sports betting accounted for 18 percent of the total online receipts. Bets on skill games went down from 76 percent in July 2009 to the present 74 percent, but for the eleventh consecutive month, takings from online skill games continue to be in excess of €200m.

These data would suggest that for the whole of 2010 takings will be more than €3bn, even when we take into account the impact during the course of the year of the new online games that are to be introduced in the next few months.

Good news too for takings online from SuperEnalotto, SuperStar and WinForLife. In July takings were approximately €1.68m, against €1.55m the month before.

The increase of 8.4 percent has probably had an influence on the SuperEnalotto jackpot: over one year it has grown 309.3 percent to €410,000, although one should add that July 2009 was the first month in which it was possible to play SuperEnalotto online. In the first seven months of this year takings for online numerical games have exceeded €10m.

Still on the increase are online takings from bingo, although marketing via the Internet only began last December. In July the takings from American tombola were over €11.1m, representing an increase of 9.8 percent on the €10.1m in June. In the first seven months the game has seen total takings in excess of €67.6m.

In general, once again, this confirms the Italian public’s preference for skill games and sport betting, the categories leading the advance in online gaming. For the remaining categories – which together account for just 7.7 percent of online gaming spend – physical play continues to prevail, although bingo seems to have the potential of being popular whether played online or in the halls.

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