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The Italian Criminal Court of Cassation has issued a final decision to the benefit of StanleyBet’s so called “CTD – centri trasmissione dati” supporting the compliance of their business with Italian and EU laws.
The court decision is not available yet, but – based on StanleyBet’s statements – the Court of Cassation – which is the Italian Supreme Court – has made reference to the decision of the European Court of Justice on the Costa – Cifone case and limited the scope of this decision to StanleyBet and therefore StanleyBet’s business would be legal, while the other CTDs would remain illegal.
I still have to review the terms of the decision for a full assessment of the case but if StanleyBet’s statements are confirmed by the actual decision, it is likely that the Italian gaming authority, AAMS, will be obliged to treat StanleyBet’s CTDs as licensed betting shops and therefore we will have both betting shops holding an Italian remote gaming license and those run under an English license by StanleyBet.
However, the Italian Stability Law 2010 obliges entities offering games to people located in Italy to pay Italian gaming duties regardless of whether or not they hold an Italian remote gaming license. This law was recently referred in a bulletin circular issued by AAMS providing the enforcement of retrospective taxes on both land-based and online gaming platform offering games to people located in Italy without an Italian license.
As a consequence, unless StanleyBet is willing to start a new battle against AAMS, they will have to pay Italian gaming taxes on their CTDs. At the same time StanleyBet has recently obtained an Italian remote gaming license and it is likely to launch its licensed platform soon. It will be interesting to see the developments of the case and how AAMS will decide to handle this.
In the meantime if you want to discuss about it, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.
