SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Austrian bookmaker SKS365 Group has secured an incredible 1,001 land-based betting licences in Italy for its planetwin365 brand.
The expanding Austrian bookmaker, which operates in Austria, Serbia, Romania and Belgium, will now turn independent Italian data transmission centres – so-called CTDs – into nationally licensed betting shops.
SKS365 Group had been engaged in legal disputes with the Italian authorities over the past few years to defend itself and Italian customers from discrimination and during that time has often supported by Italian and ECJ judgments. Only last week Italy’s highest court of appeal the Court of Cassation backed the bookmaker over its claims of discrimination.
Meanwhile the company’s move towards legal certainty follows Italy’s new Stability Law, which offers immediate betting shop licenses and the opportunity to compete for fresh licensing tenders in 2016.
The Austrian bookmaker says it has now been granted 1,001 licences for betting shops from the Italian authorities and has thereby become the operator with the highest number of directly connected sports betting shops in Italy.
Thomas Smallwood, CEO of SKS365 Group, explained: “We see these new circumstances as a big opportunity for Italy and for us as a company. We have now finally been given a framework that makes it possible for us to serve Italian customers in a nationally regulated way. It is obviously a major investment from our side, which we believe is worthwhile seeing the great popularity of our product in Italy.
“Now the challenge is to continue bringing our unrivalled sportsbook and maximising customer value within the Italian regulations. We are confident that the known quality and variety of our product and the dominant brand position of planetwin365 is the perfect base to succeed in this new era.”
SKS365 Group also aims to provide a .it online sports betting website to replace its .com offer.
