Italy is progressing with its ‘reorganisation of gambling’, as the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) enters the final stages of implementing a new framework for online gambling concessions. Last Friday, the ADM submitted the documentation for this framework to the Treasury. The Treasury and the Council of State will provide binding opinions on these proposals.

Once approved, this framework will become part of the ‘Reorganisation of Gambling’ decree, overhauling Italy’s online and land-based gambling laws. The Ministry of Made in Italy (formerly the Ministry of Enterprise) will then send the technical rules to the European Commission for evaluation, initiating a three-month ‘standstill period’ before adoption in Italy.

New Licensing Framework and Fee Structure

The Ministry of the Economy and Finance (MEF) has endorsed a new licensing framework, which introduces a €7 million fee for nine-year online gambling concessions. This fee significantly increased from the €200,000 for concessions granted in 2018. MEF considers this increase appropriate for a market dominated by major gambling companies like SNAI (Playtech), Flutter Entertainment, Lottomatica, and Entain.

ADM has revised concession terms to ban skin gambling websites, limiting operators to one brand per license. As reported by Agipronews, each permit is now restricted to “one concessionaire, one website.” Additionally, ADM mandates that operators “activate an app for each type of product category: betting, casino, poker, and bingo.”

Stricter Regulations and Enhanced Controls

New concessions will be subject to stricter scrutiny regarding IT security and game integration between operators and suppliers. Once the decree is in effect, licensees must ensure that their games and IT systems are verified by an external certification body. ADM will also implement enhanced controls to monitor player funds and their management by licensees.

As ADM advances towards final procedures, it plans to establish a D-day for launching the new licensing regime. Antonio Giuliani, Head of ADM’s online office, stated, “The Agency will set a D-day for the current operators to start collecting bets with the new regime.”

Giuliani added, “Other operators will have up to six months to launch their systems, as required by law. We will ensure equal conditions for current licensees and new operators who obtain the licence.”

Anticipated Impact and Future Prospects

If the new framework launches in 2024, ADM will achieve a key objective of the Reorganisation of Gambling decree: resolving long-standing legal disputes over Italian gambling concessions granted since 2011. This Reorganisation Decree represents the first regulatory evaluation of Italian gambling since the authorization of online gambling in 2011. The decree aims to protect players, especially minors, combat criminal activities, and increase tax revenue for government projects and social initiatives.

The implementation of this new framework is expected to significantly change the Italian gambling landscape, ensuring a more regulated and secure environment for both operators and players.

Source: Italy begins final procedures to settle new licensing regime, CasinoBeats, July 9, 2024.

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A new analysis of laws and regulatory regimes applicable to online gambling across the world found that Australia is lacking behind many of its European and Asian counterparts, urging the government to take action and stop the industry from grooming children for a life of gambling.

Gambling Advertising in the Crosshairs

Conducted by the Alliance for Gambling Reform and released today as part of the charity’s Online Gambling Policy, the analysis and its disturbing findings come up during an ongoing parliamentary review of online gambling in Australia, with the committee due to make recommendations this month.

Commenting on the analysis, the chief executive officer of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, Carol Bennett, said that the analysis shows “why online gambling is the fastest-growing form of gambling in Australia,” incurring more than AU$7 billion ($4.62 billion) in losses to Australians each year.

“While Australia dithers on banning sports gambling ads an hour before and after a game, many countries across Europe and Asia have simply banned all gambling advertisements in traditional media and online,” Bennett said.

The analysis found that Australia’s online gambling regime was significantly behind some of the major European countries, including Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK.

Italy and Spain banned all gambling advertisements on TV, radio and the Internet, Spain and the Netherlands went even further by putting greater restrictions on ads, while in the UK, restrictions to logos on sports jerseys and in-stadia ads were proposed with the White Paper.

Unable to Prevent Gambling Harm

Pointing out that the rapid evolvement of online gambling with technology has left behind researchers, policymakers, regulators and governments and made them unable to prevent the exponential growth of gambling harm, Bennett fiercely criticized the governments for their lack of investments in independent harm reduction bodies out of fear of having their “light touch gambling policy and regulation” challenged.

Bennett also pointed to Asia, where countries like South Korea and Cambodia have completely banned online gambling and others allow gambling only in casinos, as examples of stricter gambling regimes than Australia’s.

“Most dangerously this is allowing a convergence between gambling and gaming that is targeted at young people,” she said, pointing out that “gambling-like features are now embedded in gaming and most have no age restrictions,” singling out Aristocrat as “grooming young people through unrestricted apps that mimic the look and sound of poker machines.”

Act Quickly to Rectify the Situation

The analysis pointed to research that shows that 34% of people who gamble online experience gambling harm as compared to only 15.6% of those gambling on poker machines, concluding that online gambling is a far more dangerous form of gambling than gambling in casinos.

The Alliance is urging the government to act immediately and restrict children’s and young people’s exposure to online gambling, ban all gambling ads and all forms of online gambling promotion, advertising and inducements, with increased enforcement against companies breaching these restrictions.

The call conflicts with a recent report by Responsible Wagering Australia which claimed that further restrictions on the legal market’s ability to advertise itself will benefit offshore operators.

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