Betfair is leaving Italy, with Flutter Entertainment confirming that recent regulatory changes have made its betting exchange there commercially unsustainable. Betfair Sportsbook and Casino are going as well, though Flutter hasn’t said when customers will lose access. The company confirmed the decision in an Oct. 25 statement, after reports emerged that Betfair was shutting down its Italian affiliate programme.
Betfair only brings in a small share of Flutter’s Italian revenue, according to the company, and the closure won’t touch its other brands or employees in the country. Sisal, Snai, and PokerStars, which make up a much bigger part of the Italian business, will carry on as normal. Flutter hasn’t disclosed how much Betfair earns in Italy, or broken out separate figures for the Exchange, Sportsbook, and Casino.
Affiliates have already been given their dates. The Italian partnership programme ends on Oct. 31, partners have to pull any promotional content aimed at Italian customers by Oct. 29, and October’s commissions will be processed and paid in November. Affiliates working with Betfair in other countries can keep those agreements going, but Italy-only partnerships end with the month.
Those deadlines only cover affiliates, though, and nothing equivalent has been set for customers. Betfair hasn’t said when it’ll stop taking bets, how open wagers will be settled, or when players will need to withdraw their balances. Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency still lists Betfair Italia S.r.l. as an authorised online gambling operator under concession number 16028 while the company gets ready to close.
The Italian exchange first opened in 2014, letting customers bet against each other rather than placing every wager with a traditional bookmaker. Users can back an outcome or lay it, meaning they bet against it, while Betfair matches compatible wagers and takes commission on winnings. That only works with enough players offering bets at different odds, since a wager can’t be matched unless someone’s willing to take the other side.
Liquidity on the Italian exchange has always been domestic, with its betting pool kept separate from Betfair’s much larger international exchange, an arrangement Betfair confirmed in its 2014 results after years of talks with Italian regulators. A pool limited to one country gives customers far fewer potential counterparties than an international one, which can make matching bets harder, although Flutter hasn’t pointed to liquidity as the reason for pulling out.
Legislative Decree No. 41 of March 2024 brought in a new online gambling licensing framework in Italy, with concessions costing €7 million and lasting nine years. Betting exchanges, officially classed as fixed-odds betting with direct interaction between players, are still allowed under the new rules, which add fresh licensing and compliance requirements for operators. Flutter secured five Italian concessions in September 2025, and they took effect that November.
ADM has been updating the technical requirements for exchanges too, publishing version 3.0 of its communication protocol for player-to-player betting in August 2026. Operators have to meet the regulator’s technical standards when connecting their systems to Italy’s central gambling infrastructure. Flutter hasn’t said whether those requirements, the licensing costs, or something else entirely made the exchange commercially unviable.
The exit follows heavy investment in Flutter’s remaining Italian operations, most notably the €2.3 billion purchase of Snaitech from Playtech in April 2025, which added Snai’s online and retail betting businesses to its existing Sisal and PokerStars presence. Flutter has kept growing those operations under the new licensing system and hasn’t announced any wider pullback from Italy.
Betfair customers are left waiting for an actual timetable on the Exchange, Sportsbook, and Casino closures. The affiliate programme stops at the end of October, but there are still no deadlines for player accounts, withdrawals, or unsettled bets. Outside Italy, Betfair’s international operations carry on unchanged.