The Italian gambling market is poised to offer its first ever interactive television gambling platform to paid subscribers.  The SKY Italia satellite network will soon be offering their customers the opportunity to place live, real-money bets at Snai and Italbet bookmakers via television sets configured with SKY set-top boxes (STB), which are configured to display a real-time navigation menu that lets viewers place a variety of bets being offered by Italbet and Snai.  All that is required is that bettors have a pre-existing, valid account with one of the bookmakers before accessing the service.

Acting much like an intermediary between the television and bookmakers, the new service from SKY Italia resembles, in many ways, the online gambling and casino platforms that allow user's to place bets from their personal computers.  However, in this situation, all bets are made with a remote control, and on much larger television screens - allowing for an experience much like that encountered in large sportsbooks and casinos.

Taking the honors for developing the technology used by SKY is NDS, who has hitherto helped develop interactive television applications for BSkyB, Nickelodeon, DIRECTV and The Cartoon Network.  NDS also helped develop the "Goleador" football games and "Kick-Off" for SKY, which satellite subscribers will have the option of playing at a small additional cost of €1.5 per day.

The Goleador series is a challenge/skill game that puts players in the position of receiving passed balls from another teammate, at which time they must try and head or kick the ball past the keeper.  As the player progressively scores more goals, the difficulty gets harder.  As for "Kick-Off", this game is structured in the same fashion, except that players are given a penalty shot, and have the option of shooting on the goal or passing to a fellow team member.  In sync with the current happenings at the 2006 World Cup, players get to wear the Italian jersey, and will face off against the team that the real Italian club is actually facing off against.