Zona de Azar Italia – Online Betting Licenses Change the Rules of the Game in Italy

Italy.- April 15, 2024  www.zonadeazar.com  Italy’s government recently published a new framework for licensing online gambling companies. The new concessions, valid for nine years, will be granted until the end of the year, with license fees of 7 million euros each.

Online Betting License Fee Is Exorbitant

The online betting license fee is 35 times higher than the €200,000 fee introduced in 2018. In addition, operators will also pay 3% of the annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) after tax.

The Ministry of Finance justifies the increase due to the changing dynamics of the market, dominated by a limited number of large operators, such as SNAI, Lottomatica (which acquires SKS365), Flutter and Entain.

The new framework therefore aims to resolve protracted legal disputes over license renewal between operators and the Italian regulator, the Customs and Monopolies Agency ADM. The government therefore intervened to prevent ADM from canceling licenses that were set to expire in 2023 and 2024.

However, the online gambling association maintains that increasing fees will limit competition. The license terms will restrict operators to one website and one app per gaming product. Affiliate skin sites will not be allowed.

Therefore, customers must set gaming limits in accordance with the technical rules and will receive warning messages when they approach these limits. But ADM will have the power to use payment blocking to combat unlicensed online gambling.

Bid on other types of games

Currently, IGT runs the Lotto Euro game under a license valid until November 2025, but the Italian government plans to open a tender for it.

Lotto Euro’s annual turnover is expected to reach €7.7 billion after 2025, with around €200 million in net annual revenue. The government set an initial offer of one billion euros.

However, progress remains slow on online gambling reforms in Italy. The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) began talks with the 20 autonomous regions of the country. But despite ongoing discussions, implementation of the new legislation has yet to progress significantly.

In other words, the updated legislation introduces new rules for bookmakers, online betting, gaming halls, slot machines and bingo halls, including minimum distance requirements and changes to opening hours.

However, Italian media reported that discussions “stopped immediately” because regions had doubts about the reforms.

Editó @_fonta   www.zonadeazar.com