Italian gambling advertising ban: consultation on infotainment websites to be launched

The Italian communications authority is about to launch a consultation that will rewrite the conditions under which an information or entertainment (infotainment) website may sit outside the national ban on gambling advertising, and it does so by moving the assessment away from the content of the published message and towards the trademark, corporate and economic architecture standing behind the publisher.

Italy has prohibited advertising and sponsorship of games with cash prizes since 2018, under one of the strictest regimes in Europe, enforced by a penalty equal to twenty per cent of the value of the advertising with a floor of fifty thousand euro.

1. Why the infotainment guidelines consultation matters more than an ordinary advertising update

The prohibition has always admitted exceptions, and those exceptions were set out by the authority in implementing guidelines of April 2019 (delibera 132/19/CONS), which placed outside the ban the communication of products and services that relate to a separate line of business provided that there is no indirect advertising.

International gambling groups have built Italian-facing media and news properties, affiliate arrangements, odds comparison services and review sites around this exception. The draft consultation that leaked on the press provides some interesting aspects that might have an impact on future operations.

2. Trademark separation becomes the first test an operator has to pass

The draft treats the trademark as the opening question, and the requirements run against the ordinary instincts of a portfolio manager, because a registration obtained for defensive purposes in gaming classes now supplies the authority with an argument rather than protection.

Three requirements apply to the non-gaming brand:

1. The activity must hold its own trademark, registered in classes unrelated to games with cash prizes.
2. The communication may not reproduce the lettering, the colours, the payoff or the figurative symbol of the gaming brand.
3. Where the two activities share a name, the distinctive elements of the non-gaming activity must carry at least equal graphic weight.

Three actions follow for groups operating Italian-facing media properties:

1. Review every registration covering games with cash prizes that is currently relied upon, directly or indirectly, by a media property.
2. Compare the visual identity of each property against the gaming brand on the four elements the draft names, and record the comparison in writing.
3. File fresh registrations in unrelated classes where the current portfolio cannot support the separation, since registration takes months and the consultation will close long before a new filing matures.

3. Access to the gaming offer closes, and three familiar compliance items change sides

The draft prohibits hyperlinks, redirects, banners, promotional codes and any instrument giving access to the gaming offer of the operator or of its group, and it extends that prohibition to shared credentials, shared registration, single account systems and prize promotions.

The more interesting shift concerns three items that operators have always treated as evidence of compliance. The presence of a licence number, of the institutional mark of the Italian customs and monopolies agency, or of the mandatory risk warnings is treated under the draft as an indication that the message is connected to gambling, so material inserted precisely to demonstrate regulatory good standing now operates as proof of the promotional link.

The draft also requires the non-gaming activity to exist as a business in its own right, carried on stably, with its own organisation, dedicated resources and autonomous production processes, and it may not be ancillary to the gaming business or used to drive traffic towards gaming platforms.

4. Information sites face an editorial structure requirement that removes a familiar defence

For properties claiming the status of specialised press, the draft requires registration with the Italian register of communication operators (ROC) where applicable, a named responsible editor, an identifiable editorial team, verifiable periodic updating and original content.

The practical consequence deserves attention, because a site maintaining that it is not a periodical publication, and therefore cannot be assessed against the standards applicable to one, can no longer rely on the absence of periodicity to claim the exclusion. The absence of an editorial structure becomes a reason to refuse the exclusion rather than a reason to disapply the category.

Four items establish the structure, and each one needs a document behind it:

1. The appointment of a responsible editor, recorded and current.
2. An identifiable editorial team, with contracts or engagement letters showing dedicated resources.
3. An update cycle capable of verification from the publishing system itself.
4. Evidence that content is original, which matters most for properties built on syndicated odds feeds and supplier material.

5. Enhanced scrutiny is not prohibition, and the distinction carries commercial value

Several categories enter a zone of closer examination without being banned outright, and submissions that treat scrutiny and prohibition as the same thing will waste the opportunity to preserve them.

1. Odds comparison and review services fall under enhanced scrutiny, and comparison of odds is not prohibited as such.
2. Sponsorships, billboards and LED systems in sports venues attract closer examination, and sponsoring is not subject to an automatic prohibition.
3. Paid keyword placements tied to games, bets or operator brands receive the same caution.

Each of these survives if the trademark separation, the absence of access instruments and the editorial substance hold together, which is why the three preceding sections determine the outcome of this one.

6. The general clause, and how the infotainment guidelines consultation will be judged against existing case law

The provision that will decide cases is receiving the least attention. Even where every formal requirement has been satisfied, the exclusion falls away if the overall message, the medium, the context or the audience reveals a promotional connection to gambling, and in assessing that connection the authority may call for the trademark files, the organisational arrangements of the activity, the traffic flows and the economic ties between the publisher and the operator.

Counsel outside Italy reading that clause as an aspiration should consider how the same reasoning has already performed before the courts. The administrative court of Lazio, in judgment No. 10814/2021, upheld a fifty thousand euro penalty on facts consisting of a single hyperlink from a website to an online casino platform, as set out in this analysis of the decision. The court classified the link as indirect advertising rather than informational communication, reasoning from the construction of the message, including its wording, its graphic and audio elements and the context of its dissemination, and it attached weight to the fact that the colour and the font of the link differed from the rest of the site and that the destination page promoted welcome bonuses. The court also rejected the argument that the restriction offended European Union law, holding it justified by consumer protection and public health.

One hyperlink, assessed by the colour of its font, produced a fifty thousand euro liability. The same analytical method, applied to referral data and intra-group payments rather than to typography, produces an evidentiary exposure of an entirely different order, and the position should be read alongside the earlier developments on the rules that passed and the proposals that did not and the separate European litigation on search engine advertising for gambling.

7. Practical recommendations ahead of the infotainment guidelines consultation

Five steps deserve attention, and four of them remain worthwhile whatever the final text provides:

1. Audit the trademark portfolio against the classes. Identify every registration covering games with cash prizes relied upon by a non-gaming property, because each one supplies the authority with an argument.
2. Produce the traffic file now. Referral data, attribution reporting and affiliate records will be requested, and reconstructing several years of traffic flows under a regulatory deadline costs considerably more than extracting them in advance.
3. Map the intra-group payments. Service agreements, cost allocations and commission arrangements between the publisher and the licensed entity will be read as evidence of the promotional link, and arrangements that make ordinary commercial sense may still read badly when disclosed without explanation.
4. Give the editorial operation a real structure. A named responsible editor, an identifiable team, original content and a verifiable update cycle have become conditions of the exclusion rather than indicators of quality.
5. File observations, and request a hearing. The draft admits reasoned amendments to the annexed provisions and permits a hearing to be requested, and a general clause of this breadth proves far easier to shape before adoption than to contest afterwards, particularly while the wider Italian gambling calendar is already crowded with concession deadlines expiring at the end of 2026.