Lottomatica‘s Q1 financials may offer a mirror image of the wider Italian betting market, which continues to adjust to a new regulatory regime adopted in November 2025.
Early figures from the new market have suggested a steady performance for online casinos but less so for online betting, while some key regulatory matters such as retail gaming and marketing remain unsettled.
In its Q1 update, Lottomatica revealed 2% year-over-year growth for gross gaming revenue to €1.24bn (£1.1bn), with overall revenue growth of 3% to €602m with the most impressive growth recorded for the online gaming division.
Product-by-product online revenue was up 10% to €265m, while its Gaming franchise recorded the same revenue as last year, €195m, and revenue for its sports franchise dipped 5% from €150.4m to €142m.
The difference in performance between Lottomatica’s retail and online divisions is very apparent when market share is taken into account. The firm remains a formidable competitor in Italy’s online market, despite going up against some big overseas names like Flutter Entertainment, Entain, bet365 and Betsson, among others.
At the close of Q1 2026, the company maintains online market share of 31.8%, up 1.4 percentage points from Q1 2025, online sports betting market share of 32.5%; up 0.7 percentage point from 2025; and iGaming market share of 32.2%, up 1.9 percentage points from 2025.
The business also remains profitable despite the difficulties for its sports and gaming franchises.Group-wide adjusted EBITDA was up 7% to €236m (€220.5m) while adjusted net profit was up 12% to €106m.
Guglielmo Angelozzi, Lottomatica’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “In the first quarter of 2026 we continued to see strong momentum of our addressable markets, supporting a double-digit growth YoY in Adj. EBITDA of +22%, on a normalised basis.”
SKS365 acquisition still paying off
Italy has become a key target for various international companies, and this has left domestic firms like Lottomatica a lot to consider. As mentioned above, the likes of Flutter and Betsson have been carving out market share in Italy.
Betsson’s recent Q1 results showed the significance of Italy to its wider European results, leading overall regional growth of 10.3% to €61.3m. Flutter, meanwhile, has been pushing hard for Italian exposure, now owning two major players in the market – Sisal and Snaitech.
Local firms like Lottomatica have had to respond, and in Lottomatica’s case it did so via acquisition. In April 2024 it acquired retail and online gaming firm SKS365 for €640m and subsequently rebranded it to PWO.
The firm began attributing gains in market share to this M&A in 2025, and this has continued in 2026 according to leadership. PWO improved its iGaming market share to 5.5%, and has recovered ‘half of the market share’ lost during the migration of its platform and customers into Lottomatica’s operations.
“PWO continues to perform well having fully recovered its market share in total Sports compared to pre-migration levels, and with a good progression in iGaming,” Angelozzi said.
Lottomatica confident amid political debate
Italy’s new market has been warmly received by most of its licensed companies.
The country stands out as having the second largest betting market in Europe, behind the UK, but unlike other nations – the UK, Netherlands, France and Germany – its tax framework has not received nearly as much grief as its contemporaries.
Some specific provisions such as the requirement that operators must have one licence per brand or website have also been welcomed by smaller firms. Marketing restrictions, however, are an area of more contention, including a total ban on sports sponsorships.
There has been some pressure mounting on the government to reverse the 2018 Dignity Decree banning betting sponsors. This is largely due to the perceived financial impact on Italian sports, an issue thrust into the spotlight when the national team failed to qualify for the World Cup this year.
Maurizio Leo, Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, is also planning to present a package of proposed retail gambling reforms to PM Giorgia Meloni’s Council of Ministers, including the adoption of a regional revenue-sharing model.
Against this backdrop, Lottomatica remains confident for the remainder of 2026.
Angelozzi explained: “With a positive outlook for FY 2026, we expect to close the FY 2026 Adj. EBITDA at the top end of the guidance and to return up to €1bn to shareholders in 2026 and 2027, starting this week with the launch of the newly approved buyback programme.”