Italy’s gambling industry has been declining for the past few years. Some of the reasons for that are the high taxes imposed on operators, the slow growth after the 2008 world financial crisis as well as the over-saturated market.
Another online gambling operator has announced the withdrawal of its business operations in Italy. PKR Poker made its announcement on the 7th of October, saying it is to leave Italy’s regulated online poker market.
The UK-based online poker operator took down its Italy licensed website pkr.it after two years of doing business in Italy. PKR explained to all its stakeholders, that the website will be unavailable for an undefined period of time with a starting date of 7th of October. Those who have registered account on the platform will no longer be able to use the accounts for payment or playing on the online tables.
The PKR Poker has not yet explained in details what the reasons for its leave are, however affiliates of the platform were sent an explanation which states that the online poker sector of Italy has brought no profit for the past few years, and management of PKR is confident that the “Italian poker market is not a viable for PKR at this time.” They further added that they are going to allocate their businesses and will focus their strength on markets which have better prospect of future growth.
All users of PKR poker rooms were advised to transfer all funds from their accounts back to their bank accounts, and were guaranteed that the customer relations department will be at their disposal if they encounter any problems in the process.
The decision of PKR to allocate its businesses out of Italy was combined with another ‘bad news’ for the gambling industry – the latest market research reports stated that August had brought more than 11% less revenue from poker tourneys compared to the data from last year. The total revenue from tournaments is just €50 million.
The Italian gambling market has been on a moderate decline since 2006, when the current gambling regulations were implemented. Also, most poker rooms are doomed by little to no liquidity as well as the monopoly established by operator PokerStars. The Italian PokerStars website has reported the staggering 70% share of the poker tourney’s market in August as well as around 60% from ring games.
PKR is not alone in the group of companies who report negative revenue and are forced to liquidate or alter their operations in the country. Two weeks ago, Amaya Gaming stated that it is changing its current plans for expanding in Italy – it postponed the launch of its Full Tilt version in Italy.
