The discussion on the legislative decree relating to the reorganization of public gambling, starting with online gambling, gets into the heart in the italian Parliament.
In the last two weeks, the text has in fact been examined by the Finance commissions of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, which will have to express a non-binding opinion by February, the 22nd, after having heard various representatives of gaming world, of gambling associations of the third sector and politics.
Hearings which brought out very interesting proposals - such as the sharing of revenues deriving from gaming by Regions and Municipalities, to be used for the treatment and prevention of gambling addiction - but also critical issues, such as the rules designed for charge-card sales points, starting with the amount of fees for registration in the online register, and above all the standards for the online tender, which should follow the approval of the legislative decree relating to the reorganization.
As is known, in fact, this tender currently foresees a cost of 7 million for each of the concessions put up for tender, a figure exponentially higher than the current one (€200 thousand), which would exclude the majority of small and medium-sized businesses in the sector currently state concessionaires and which would allow the participation in the tender of no more than 30 operators, favoring large groups.
This inconsistency was also noted, for example, by the president of the Senate Finance Committee, Massimo Garavaglia, who hypothesized an expense of 2 or 3 million for each concession and a fee on the skins, currently eliminated, at a cost of €100 or 200 thousand euros each, in proportion to the number of skins obtained.
Another important issue is the need to carry on as soon as possible the reorganization of the land-based gambling, which is currently left on standby.
Now we only have to see if the Government will take this into account and decide to revise the legislative decree and consequently the ban for online gaming.