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The Italian Board of Ministries has approved the new rules setting out the legal framework for online gambling in Italy, including the regime for the award of new remote gaming licenses.
The Italian Board of Ministries has approved a reform of the Italian rules on online gambling that represent a major change compared to the past.
The legislative decree is very complex, but the most relevant provisions can be summarised as follows:
1. There will be a tender for the award of 50 new online gaming licenses that, according to the wording of the law, shall be awarded before 31 December 2024 since all the current licenses will expire by that date. It seems a very challenging timing, but this is the plan of the legislator;
2. The price for each 9 year license will be of EUR 7 million per license to which an annual license fee equal to 3% of the GGR net of gambling taxes shall be paid. Also, operators shall invest an amount equal to 0.2 of their GGR net of gambling taxes in responsible gaming campaigns. Groups cannot hold more than 5 licenses which might be a problem in case of aggregation;
3. Very stringent requirements are provided to meet the suitability criteria and potential penalties are also increased to represent a deterrent for operators;
4. Strong limitations are introduced to skins / white label sites since any operator shall have one website with an Italian top level domain name and its logo showed on the site. No provisions have been introduced to allow additional skins against the payment of a potential fee;
5. Shops selling top up cards to transfer funds to gaming accounts shall be recorded in a specific registry and pay an annual fee of € 100 per shop. Also, any gambling activity or withdrawal of funds from the shops appear to be limited;
6. Stronger rules have been introduced against the offering of games in Italy through unlicensed gambling websites, also through the implementation of payment blocking measures.
This is a high level summary of the most relevant changes introduced. In the coming weeks, we will publish updates on specific issues. Please reach out to me if you have specific questions.
We will discuss the topic in a webinar on April 16 whose details are available HERE.
