意大利博彩公司正式推出网上真钱老虎机(2)

　　译文：

　　ITALIAN REGULATOR OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES REAL MONEY ONLINE SLOTS

　　The Italian online gaming regulatory body AAMS gave today the green light to online slots gameplay. From today on licensed online casinos are allowed to offer online slots and progressive jackpots to their players.

　　As expected, today the Italian online gaming regulator AAMS officially launched real money online slots gameplay. The first companies to offer online slots this morning were Lottomatica, bwin.party, 888 Casino and William Hill.

　　Italy regulated its online gaming market a long time ago but certain games and concepts continued to remain off limits to players and operators. Today Italy gave the green light to real money online slots, effectively regulating the full spectrum of the online gaming market.

　　The regulation of online slots was preceded by the launch of exchange betting and fast-fold poker. About a month ago Italy also implemented a new set of rules that allow online bingo rooms to offer new kinds of services to their players including progressive bingo jackpots.

　　The Italian regulator believes that the launch of real money online slots would hugely boost revenues generated from online gaming taxation. The regulator explained that offline slots gameplay accounted for more than half of the revenues generated by land-based casinos in 2011.

　　Up until this moment online slots were only available in Italy at unregulated online casinos. In the past, the AAMS desperately tried to prevent unregulated operators' access to the market. Most unregulated operators however managed to bypass the country's IP blocking. This resulted in a loss of revenue for legit and regulated casinos.

　　Most regulated operators also complain that the current online gaming taxes valid in Italy are too high. Likewise, industry observers argue that if taxes would be lowered, most unregulated operators would be persuaded to apply for a license. This in the end would generate more tax income for the state.

　　At this moment the Italian online gaming market is dominated by a handful of licensed operators. The largest one is the genuine Italian operator Lottomatica. This is followed by bwin.party, William Hill Online and 888 Holdings. William Hill is one of the fastest growing brands in Italy having a market share of around 8% at this moment.