The Italian approach to i-Gaming – Historical background and current landscape
Over the last four years Italy stood out as the pioneer, champion and leader of a new regulatory approach to remote gaming that eventually became a reference model in Europe for those jurisdictions (like France and Denmark) willing to open up the respective gaming markets without however giving up their ruling powers in crucial areas like licensing, compliance and taxation.
Although traditionally Italy has a very solid track record of slow-paced and highly controversial decisions whenever it comes to introducing unprecedented reforms in any business sector, it must be acknowledged that in the case of gaming things happened fairly quickly and smoothly. Indeed the three triggers of the Italian landmark reform of remote gaming were: (i) a mounting political pressure from the Brussels authorities on Italy for its heavily monopoly-driven legislation which resulted in several infringement proceedings being launched against Rome, (ii) the consistent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice in various cases involving local agents of a Liverpool-based bookmaker who accepted bets in Italy that were then sent and remotely processed in England via a data transmission system without however holding a betting licence granted by the Italian gaming authority (see in re Gambelli, in re Placanica), and last but not least, (iii) the large Treasury budget deficit that early in late June 2006 induced the then Prodi-led cabinet to pass overnight emergency legislation aimed at feeding the Italian state’s coffins with new sources of tax revenue to be generated from the partial liberalisation of the domestic gaming market and the simultaneous launch of a fresh licence tender contemplating for the first time ever the award of pure remote gaming licences. On 2 August 2006 the governmental decree (soon re-branded “Bersani Decree” after the name of the then Minister of Industry) was converted into law by the parliament.
The main features of the landmark 2006 reform can be summarised as follows. … Continue Reading
