Introduced in 1956, horse betting in Italy constantly increased collecting more than 2.190 Million Euro in 2005. Betting on sports in Italy is most recent: it started like a test on 29/6/98 during the Football World Championship in France. Players could place their bets only in of the 329 shops belonging to the network. According to data diffused by Coni the total turnover of football pool games, from 29/6/98 to 31/12/04 amounted to about 5.768 million Euro (397 million collected in Match point shops). According to AAMS data the fixed Odd Sport bets generated more than 2.280 million Euro in 2006. Bets on Football are the most popular (players can place bets on Premier League and first division matches, European Cups and important international Championships). Bets on tennis, basketball, volleyball, ski, rugby, cycling, sailing, athletic, swimming and motorbike and car races are very popular too.

Selling point Network

Till 31/12/99 the network of betting shops accepting horse and sport bets was made of 329 shops belonging to two providers: SPATI and Snai. Starting on 1/1/2000 new operators were authorized to open 1000 sport betting points and 671 shops for bets on horse races. Those new providers got a 6 year licence.
Actually there are three different betting shops in Italy:

• Shops collecting both sport and horse bets
• Shops collecting only horse bets
• Shops collecting only sport bets