Almost 60 remote gaming licences are already active in Italy, which means that the local market is very crowded and highly competitive.
This is despite the current licences not yet allowing operators to offer popular games such as online poker, online casino and other Vegas-style cash games. According to Quirino Mancini, partner at Sinisi Ceschini Mancini, these will notably become available when the Italian regulatory body (AAMS) launches the new licensing round early in 2011.
Speaking to iNTERGAMINGi, Mancini said: "With very imminent developments in the AAMS pipeline, the biggest challenge for the Italian regulator is to be able to effectively and timely cope with massive filings from both existing licensees and new applicants, that almost inevitably will pile up and will possibly trigger a bit of a red-tape jam in the AAMS offices. As for the operators, those already holding a licence will strive to go live with their online poker and casino products before any other competitor, while the newcomers will want to gain a pole position in the application filing race when AAMS actually re-opens the licensing process any time soon."
According to Mancini, due to heavy budgetary restrictions the Ministry of Treasury, it is possible that the existing operators’ filings could be prioritised and processed ahead of all the fresh licence applications. "As a resut, as things stand now, the likeliest time to market for the existing AAMS licensees to be entitled to go live with poker, casino and other cash games appears to be some time in Q1/11, while the newcomer applicants should realistically look at some time in Q2/11 to be awarded their AAMS licences," added Mancini.
