The CEO of the firm's Italian business, Mattia Nicelli, said 700 to 800 people were betting on the site, during the first few days of operations.
"We will make money in Italy," said Nicelli. "I'm not allowed to lose money."
Experts anticipate the firm will generate £20 to £40 million (about $100 million) from its new Italian and Spanish businesses. Ladbrokes' primary U.K. rivals William Hill and Coral are also in the process of opening shops in Italy.
Italy is gradually opening its gambling market. Though the government still decides which kinds of bets are allowed, fixed-odds betting on things like soccer matches and horse racing have now been introduced. Experts said 95% of bets in Italy are on soccer matches.
Ladbrokes has €100 million ($147.3 million) to finance its expansion into the country and plans to have 62 shops offering both sports and horse racing betting, plus another 51 betting kiosks in places like bars and cafes, in time for next summer's Euro 2008 finals.
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Slots Expanding Too
Last year, the Italian government increased the number of slot machines betting shops from eight to 24, as the first step in its relaxed regulatory stance toward gaming.Nicelli said Ladbrokes may use some of its licenses to open amusement arcades rather than betting shops in order to make the most of the floor space in its shops.
Experts believe the Italian sports betting market is currently worth around €2 billion and the horse-racing betting market €2.1 billion. The overall betting and gaming market is estimated to be worth €28 billion. In the U.K., the betting sector alone was worth £45.08 billion in stakes in 2005.
Christopher Bell, chief executive of Ladbrokes PLC said: "We are very pleased...this represents a major step forward for us in Italy. We have appointed an Italian chief executive who brings extensive local knowledge of the industry to our operations and we will continue to expand our Italian business through acquiring further existing licences."
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