Recent Posts

Copyright Giulio Coraggio 2018

 

21 Oct

Posted at 23:12h in aams, compliance, decision, gaming, Italy by

The Italian administrative court of Lazio region held that Italian gaming licensees are not liable for the conduct of their marketing shops, unless they have acted with negligence in monitoring the activity of such shops. Italian gaming law allows gaming operators to enter into agreements with shops only for the marketing of gaming account top up cards and for the distribution and collection of gaming account agreements. These shops (the so called “PDCs”) are strictly prohibited to offer any games to their customers and cannot be involved in any gaming or betting activity. The Italian gaming authority following the breach of the abovementioned ban by a PDC had automatically disconnected the relative licensee from the servers of the Italian gaming...

15 Oct

Posted at 20:03h in casino, gaming, Italy by

As part of a draft law decree aimed at pushing the development of the tourism sector, the Italian Ministry of the Tourism, Ms. Brambilla has filed a proposal allowing the opening of casinos in all the Italian 5 stars hotels.Presently casinos can be found located in Italy only in Venice, Sanremo, Saint Vincent and Campione d'Italia. Italian criminal laws prohibit the opening of any other casino. On the contrary, if the proposal drafted by Ms. Brambilla is approved, there could be 26 casinos just in the city of Rome. On one hand this is a very good news for gaming operators since as a consequence of the number of games that are expected to be launched in the next months...

13 Oct

Posted at 19:27h in compliance, gaming, Internet by

EGamingReview reports that the European Commission has given to the Danish Government a month to amend its draft law regulating gaming and betting websites to make it compliant with EU laws. The Danish draft law was originally submitted to the European on 7 July 2009 and the European Commission has now issued its opinion alleging that the draft law is not in line with EU law.According to the available information, the Danish draft law prescribed, among others, the monopoly of pool betting and the introduction of measures blocking the access to websites run without a Danish gaming license as well as the blocking of the financial transactions performed by Danish residents through these websites.  If the provisions referred above are...

11 Oct

Posted at 17:42h in aams, gaming, Italy, live poker by

Live poker tournaments have been recently very successful in Italy.  Italians love playing poker, but most of them cannot afford to reach every week-end one of the 4 casinos that are currently open in Italy. Consequently, poker clubs have been arranging a number of very popular poker tournaments. However, life has never been easy for poker clubs! Local police authorities were in charge of setting the rules governing such tournaments which gave rise to considerable inconsistencies between municipalities. To limit such inconsistencies, the Italian Parliament has empowered the Ministry of Home Affairs to issue the regulations governing the performance of live poker tournaments nationwide, and has also set forth the basic principles with which the Ministry shall abide in drafting the regulations. The operators...

07 Oct

Posted at 20:01h in aams, gaming, Italy, videolottery by

As anticipated in my previous post, I have spoken today at a very interesting conference at ENADA Roma 2009, the international fair on amusement and gaming machines.  The topic of the conference was about videolotteries (VLT) that are expected to be launched on the Italian market by the end of the year. The main comments from gaming operators and speakers was that, because of the considerable wins offered by VLT which can reach € 500,000, there will be gaming halls able to attract a number of players due to the wins promised by VLTs and to even compete with the games offered by casinos. Casinos are currently located in Italy only in Venice, Sanremo, Saint Vincent and Campione d'Italia and the opening of...

02 Oct

Posted at 19:11h in aams, videolottery by

Dear Reader,This is to inform you that I have been gently invited to speak at the ENADA Roma 2009, the international fair on amusement and gaming machines, during the round table named "VLT: Verità, Limitazioni e Tormenti" on the 7th of October at 3 pm. If any of you passes by there, please come to me to shake your hand.Giulio...

25 Sep

Posted at 11:01h in aams, gaming, Italy, newslot, videolottery by

The Italian gaming authority has issued the decree setting the terms of the call for tenders relating to the assignment of the new licenses concerning the setting up and the management of the network connecting the NewSlots (the only type of slot machines which can be placed outside of casinos) and Videolotteries.  The current licenses will expire on 30 October 2010 and the Italian gaming authority will launch by 30 April 2010 a new call for tenders for the assignment of the network licenses which will last 9 years, starting from 1 November 2010.The call for tenders will be open only to operators that have reached experience in Italy or abroad in the gaming sector managing at least 2,500 gaming terminals. However, it will be possible to participate to...

23 Sep

Posted at 10:51h in e-commerce, Internet, Italy by

The criminal court of Rome has issued a relevant decision on the liability of hosting providers in Italy. The dispute concerned the placing on the website www.ragazzeinvendita.com of banners connecting to the website www.girlsinchat.com where it was possible to connect via chat or via phone to the girls showed on the website. The proceeding concerned, among others, the contributory liability of the website www.ragazzeinvendita.com for the crime of exploitation of the prostitution. The court held that the company managing the website www.ragazzeinvendita.com was not liable for the crime since there was no connection with the company managing the website www.girlsinchat.com and in particular because the former did not gain any profit from the activity connected the second website.This decision is quite interesting since it follows the opinion of the Advocate General of...

22 Sep

Posted at 18:04h in e-commerce, ECJ, Internet by

The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice has issued today its opinion on the Google v. Louis Vuitton case which related to the possibility to consider the use by Google, in its advertising system "AdWords" of a keyword corresponding to a third party's registered trade mark as an infringement of that trade mark. The Advocate General held that:the selection by AdWords customers of a keyword reproducing or imitating a trade mark registered by a third party and covering identical or similar goods and the displaying of ads in response to keywords reproducing or imitating registered trade marks without the trade mark owner's authorisation does not give rise to a trade mark infringement and therefore a trade mark owner cannot...