THE REGULARIZATION OF CTDs - The latest proposal of the government provides that, pending the implementation of Article 14 of the tax delegation Law (whose promulgation is expected by March 2015), the regularization of active centers in Italy without a license is permitted through a series of conditions. Not later than January 31, 2015 they must submit to the Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (Adm is the italian gaming regulator, ex Aams) a "declaration of commitment to tax regularization". The Adm, in its turn, sends to the police department in charge the applications received". "The tax regularization is finished with the payment of the single tax in the legislative decree 23 of December 1998 and "with the submission of the application to the trader, (...) he is entitled, only until the expiration date, in the year 2016, to the concessions of States in force for bets collection".
It is also provided that the owner of the shop or of the collection place has to communicate their data and the existence of the collection activity (...) to the police commissioner and "everyone manages a point of bets collection (....) must have the subjective requirements corresponding to those required for the license issue". If the police commissioner verifies its inexistence, "he orders the immediate closure of the shop or of the collection place".
PENALTIES FOR AWPS - The amendment also increases the penalties for people who don't connect the slots to the network, bringing from €1,500 to €3,000 the standard amount that must be paid and from 3 to 6 percent the call rate.
THE REDUCTION OF NET REVENUE TO CONCESSIONAIRES - The government, however, thinks it must improve the public finance targets and anticipate a more comprehensive reorganization of net revenue's extent: meanwhile, with the introduction of the paragraph 26 bis, the reduction of state resources available as payment for concessionaires and subjects that, according to their respective expertises, operate in gaming management and collection made with devices of the article 110, paragraph 6, of Tulps, is set at €500 million on annual basis“. So, from January 1th "the operators of the industry will pay to the concessionaires the whole amount net of winnings of gaming collection (...). Concessionaires (...) also annually pay the sum of €500 million, within the months of April and October (...) and, (...) in the context of their public functions, share with other operators of the field the remaining sums (...) renegotiating the respective contracts".
THE SUPPORT TO GAMING OFFER - With the paragraph 26 ter it is provided, "considering the general duty of preservation of public asset value, as well as the particular one to ensure the improvement of service levels in public gaming", that the Mef, on a proposal from Adm, allows with a decree "to adopt all necessary measures to support gaming offer, including measures regarding collection, return in winnings and the stake, in cases where the related offer of specific products denotes a loss of collection and of revenue, over the last three years, not less than 15 percent for each year".
THE TECHNICAL REPORT - In the technical report, government notes that gaming rules contained in the Stability law aime to the "strong fight to the phenomenon of parallel bets collection", to lower the winning limits and to the symmetrical increase of gaming tax levy, for games played with AWPs and VLTs devices" and "to strong fight to gaming phenomenon played through AWPs that, apparently in compliance with legal operating parameters, indeed they operate or disconnected (...) or tampered with".
As regards the regularization of Ctds, we assume a revenue of €397 million, which we add penalties for €240 million, which we add rate and tax increase too.
As regards the expected revenue from slots disconnected or tampered with, we expect 213.525.000 per year, and from so-called 'totems' (terminals for not authorized online gaming) 328.500.000, for a total of 540.000.000. "Then, the whole provisions in the amendment determine a higher revenue of €937 million".
Government also notes that "until the Agency of monopolies has had measures and intervention margins of a state company, it has been relatively easy to put in place (...) intervention measures to adjust the structure of different gaming offers to the competition”. But the AAMS-Customs unification "showed the limit that holds up the possibility of adapting interventions". This is why "we think it is necessary to intervene to ensure that the important state assets (...) are not impoverished for competitive decline of their content".
THE LOTTO TENDER - In another amendment, the government brings forward to 2015 the tender for the new assignment of the lotto gaming management and it sets its basic conditions: "not renewable license lenght of nine years; selection based on the principle of the most economically advantageous offer and, concerning the price, the starting price for increasing offers, of €700 million; payment of the price indicated in the offer of the winner competitor on the list in the amount of €30 million, at the time of the award, in the year 2015, in the amount of €250 million in 2016 (...); the winner competitor can use the telecommunications network for direct or indirect provision of services different from the lotto collection and other fixed odds games with numbers if they are compatible with the collection itself in the opinion of Adm; net revenue for concessionaires of 6 percent of the collection; obligation to update the technological network system and of gaming terminals according to quality standards that ensure maximum safety and reliability".
The largest estimated revenue will flow into the Fund for structural economic investments.
THE REBELLION OF THE FIELD - For the Confindustria's Federazione Sistema Gioco Italia "the planned hypoythesis of 500 million per year of additional taxation is simply an unrealistic and unachievable one. Because it would lead to a simply unsustainable situation for the field. In this way the companies will close. According to the federation "With such a measure they sentence to death the whole industry of entertainment machines, from the 13 licensed companies to hundreds of management companies, until the more than 110,000 people who are part of this industry in different ways".
The lost jobs will be over 75,000 without counting the unavoidable shift to illegal gaming with loss of resources for the treasury and protections for player.