Virgin Aims Big in Italian Poker Market

November 4 - At a presentation this week, Virgin Games spelled out its plans to conquer the Italian online poker market, due to its partnership with Cogetech SpA.

The Chief Executive of Virgin Games, Simon Burridge, said that the group's aim is snap up a 5% share of the Italian market within a year of starting operations in the country.

Italy is currently going through a process of gambling legislation reform.

The group has signed a lucrative partnership deal with the Italian operator, Cogetech SpA which Virgin Games believes will help it to fulfil its aims immensely.

"We are 'white labelling' it on the back of Cogetech," explained Burridge at the presentation this week. "It is a lot less expensive. Cogetech does player registration and banking. For Virgin, it is just a marketing operation and that is what it does best."

Virgin Poker has managed to attract 8000 players since it was first launched in September this year, according to Burridge.

But Virgin Games is aiming higher and the Chief Executive said: "After six weeks, we are on target to take 5% of the market after 12 months.

"The market is 200 million Euros," said Burridge. "So by December we are looking to be 10 million Euros. We are looking to break even in five or six months."

While Virgin Games continues to have big plans to enter the online poker market, many gaming operators can contest that this is no easy feat. Ladbrokes recently announced that it was selling its Italian operations, and others are realizing that the competition remains extremely fierce in the growing market.