Italy Issues 70 New Licenses To Gambling Operators

The italian gambling regulator agenzia delle dogane e dei monopoli (adm) completed the process of providing operators of new licenses to online games. 70 companies received the long-awaited right to activities after certain delays in this process.

Of the total no. Companies received a complete permission to work in the italian market. Last four – scommettendo, spati, scommettendo, spati, sogno di tolosa and universal solutions have become licenms with additional conditions.

The remaining 66 licensees include a number of large international operators, including the stars group, william hill, paddy power betfair, gvc and bet365, local ground and online companies, as well as new participants from scandinavia, such as casumo and videoslots.

Each license required the payment of duty officers in the amount of €200,000 (£175 535 / $ 226 379). At the same time, companies should also have a valid license for the organization of terrestrial gambling in italy or the european union. Their turnover over the past two years should be at least €one.5 million. All licenses are valid until december 31, 2022.

However, the final amount in licenses is significantly lower than that the italian government planned to provide initially (120). It also means that several companies withdraw their applications.

Initially, the reception was planned to be launched in september 2017, but this happened in january 2018. In october last year, adm stated that he plans to complete the process in the coming weeks.

This was done after the government submitted the so-called dignity decree, which actually banned all advertising of gambling from january 1, 2019.

This was followed by an increase in tax in december last year, also entered into force on january 1. At the same time, the tax on online casino and bingo increased to 25% of gross income from gambling. Rate taxes with fixed coefficients increased to 24% of gdp. Operators of rates for terrestrial sports are currently subject to a tax of 22% of the total value, while the tax on virtual sports (22%), the terminals for the video gallery (6.75%) and entertainment with prizes (18.85 %) was also increased.

Despite these changes, the market continues to work stably. According to ficom leisure, regulated income from gambling businesses grew by 16.8% in 2018 to €1.53 billion. Most of this income (46.4%) accounted for online rates, followed by a casino: they account for 41.9% of the total.