Tottenham Report: Gambling reforms announced in Italy — Where from here?

To help recover from the heavy impact of the pandemic on the gambling sector in Italy, the Italian Ministry of Finance’s sub-secretary in charge of gambling has announced significant gambling reforms to be undertaken in the next 12-18 months. 

Indeed, the lockdown measures resulting from the pandemic had a dramatic impact on the land-based gambling industry, resulting in a serious contraction in offline gambling volumes, as well as the financial and organizational difficulties faced by the value-chain operators. It also resulted in a swift transition to the online channel, which is probably, at least in part, irreversible, and a significant increase in the illegal gambling offer. 

As a result, Parliament should delegate to the government the drafting of significant reforms to reorganise the whole gambling sector. 

One of the most awaited reforms concerns the revision of the tenders for new gambling licenses. 

The publication of the tenders was already delayed by law in relation to the difficulties caused by COVID and subsequently not launched by the Italian gambling regulator ADM. 

As for example, next 20 March 2022, current amusement-with-prizes machine (AWP) and video lottery (VLT) concessions, granted by the ADM in 2013 for a period of nine years, will expire. The next tender imposes stringent conditions, with particular reference to suitability to pursue the professional activity and economic and financial standing for the concessionaire, as well as suitability requirements of its value-chain operators. The redrafting of the above-mentioned tender provisions may require a short extension of all current AWP/VLT concessions. 

Another example is for betting and bingo halls. All betting and bingo-hall concessions have already expired and are currently operated under prorogation. They too are waiting for the publication of the tenders for the new concessions’ assignment. 

As for the online channel, the 2019 Budget law providing that the remote gambling tender be limited to 40 licensees with a €2,5 million initial bidding price is still in force — again, even though the tender has not been published within the expected deadline. The launch of the tender was heavily criticized by the national remote gambling association, LOGiCO, as well as by the European Betting and Gaming Association (EGBA), resulting in the potential expulsion from the market of half of the current online-gambling concessionaires. 

In this regard, the sub-secretary has publicly announced a review of these tender terms, in particular in regard to the number of concessions assigned, to avoid the risk of favouring the growth of illegal gambling by limiting the number of legal operators. 

All currently active remote gambling concessions will expire on 31 December 2022 and no doubt, the revision of the tender provisions may necessitate their short extension. 

But the announced drafting of gambling reforms to reorganise the whole sector would in any case mostly impact ground-based gambling. 

In the last 10 years, Italian local administrations relegated the exclusive attribution of gambling legislative power to the Parliament and to central public administration, enacting local provisions to restrict gambling halls’ opening hours and to impose minimum distances from “sensitive premises”, such as schools, hospitals, etc. This resulted in current concessionaires’ difficulties to open new gambling halls or even maintain the opened ones. 

The definition of a harmonised legislative framework at regional and local levels has thus become even more urgent, to overcome the current legal uncertainty. 

Besides, it is the government’s intention to pursue the implementation of a downsizing of the AWP and VLT networks, both in terms of number of machines and, mostly, the number and types of premises. It must be noted that the pandemic lockdowns somehow anticipated and favoured this downsizing and concentration plan.  

Also, the government intends to implement an official register of all value-chain operators in gambling. Presently, there is an existing register only for the gambling-machines segment, but this should be superseded by a new one, applicable to any person who carries out any functional activity related to all public games, including betting, bingo, and remote gambling. 

Worth mentioning is also the willingness to adopt a national gambling self-exclusion register available to all players. Currently, this relevant responsible-gambling tool exists only for remote gamblers. A remote player’s registration automatically and transversally excludes the latter from all concessionaires’ remote-gambling websites’ offer.  

While the Italian gambling market is among the greatest in Europe, national gambling legislation is extremely fragmented. Legislation for the reorganization of the whole gambling sector was planned on several occasions and even started, but those attempts have yet to succeed. 

This time, as well, it is difficult to predict whether or not the delegated reforms that should be first voted on by Parliament will be completed.

Finally, it’s sad to say, but the uncertainty for near-future forecasts may also be hindered by the current war in Ukraine.