The Italian Government cancels the work against gambling addiction

With the Budget Law 2025, the fund against gambling addiction and the observatory, instruments to stem the damage of an increasingly large market, made up of virtual betting, poker with cash payments, online casinos, extended concessions and more frequent lotto draws, were cancelled

8 dicembre 2024

Four articles in the Budget Law for 2025 and the game of state gambling is over. If the Italian parliament ratifies the government’s text, the discussion will be concluded by getting out of the way, in this order, a real policy to combat betting and lottery addictions (which commit 150 billion or more euro a year), a minimum decent legal procedure for contracting with the companies in the business, and any qualms about further expanding the batting of lotto number draws. Four strokes of a, as they say, ‘pincer’ manoeuvre.

Article 66 of the bill abolishes the national fund for combating gambling and, at the same time, dissolves the Observatory for combating the spread of gambling and the phenomenon of serious addiction, created by the Ministry of Health. Previously, with three other regulations (Articles 12, 13 and 14), the House and Senate are asked to change the tax levy on ‘fixed odds games of chance and card games not in the form of tournaments’, to extend concessions (and we are 10 years away from expiry!) and to expand the gambling market.

Four articles in the Budget Law for 2025 and the game of state gambling is over

Before moving on to the ‘revealing’ article (the 66th), however, let us decipher the name ‘fixed odds games of chance’. These are ‘virtual bets’ on races simulated by an electronic terminal of horses, dogs, cars or other sporting events. The odds are set in advance, independent of the real case. The same aggregation includes ‘draw games’ where one bets on numbers or combinations, ‘remote’ bingo, ‘scratch cards’ (online or paper). And then again ‘cash’ poker and digital casino games in which participants compete against the bank, i.e. against the algorithms of the hi-tech system.

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Evidently this ‘portfolio’ is not enough, if one adds (art. 13) the fourth midweek draw for the lotto, normal and ‘super’, while in defiance of any semblance of formal correctness, concessions for bingo, betting, and the management of networks for slot machines in specialised halls are extended (art. 14).

What is the sign of this truly violent operation? In the draft Budget Law 2025, explicitly in the aforementioned Article 66, a dangerous fork in the road for Italian social and health policies can be seen

This nonchalance was criticised by the Court of Auditors, in passage of the document it deposited when it was heard in the Chamber of Deputies on 5 November. But the most serious bludgeon to the public interest, or rather to the constitutional value of health, is dealt with in Article 66, which takes away ways from the fund for prevention and treatment and abolishes the guiding body, the Observatory at the Ministry of Health.

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What is the sign of this truly violent operation? In the draft Budget Law 2025, explicitly in the aforementioned Article 66, a dangerous fork in the road for Italian social and health policies can be seen. With the suppression of the fund dedicated to the treatment and prevention of gambling disorder (Dga) and the abolition of the National Observatory for the fight against gambling addiction, not only are years of positive institutional work compromised, but a disturbing picture of contradictions and crossed interests is drawn.

Gambling, the budget law is a regulatory regression

Since 2012, with the Balduzzi decree, and even more so since 2017, with the inclusion of Dga in the essential levels of care (Lea, i.e. the services that the public health service must provide, ed.), Italy had charted a clear course: treating behavioural addictions, including gambling, as a public health priority. This approach, supported by a dedicated ministerial fund that commits the regions, and supervised by a consultative Observatory in the Ministry of Health, has made it possible to build an integrated model between State, regions and the third sector, based on data, planning and coordination.

This is why the provision of the Budget Bill 2025 represents a caesura: it is not just a reduction in resources, but a cancellation of the institutional architecture that has made effective public policies possible

This is why the provision of the Budget Bill 2025 represents a caesura: it is not just a reduction in resources, but a cancellation of the institutional architecture that has made effective public policies possible. This model, which generated shared practices and territorial investments, now risks dissolving, leaving room for fragmented and sporadic interventions.

Spending on gambling grows, but not tax revenues

The violence of the decision proposed to the Chambers stands out as soon as one pays attention to the ‘quantities’. The volume of gambling in 2023 exceeded EUR 147.5 billion, with a forecast of around 160 by 2024. An impressive flow of money, which however generates unchanged tax revenues for the state. But at what cost?

The exponential spread of gambling has produced a ‘silent pandemic’ of addictions, with devastating repercussions on individuals, families and the social fabric

The exponential spread of gambling has produced a ‘silent pandemic’ of addictions, with devastating repercussions on individuals, families and the social fabric. The paradox is obvious: the State, promoter and regulator of legal gambling, finds itself at the same time responsible for policies to contain the damage caused by its own concession. A contradiction that, with the elimination of the fund and the Observatory, is further aggravated, subordinating public health needs to fiscal and industrial interests.

The role of the Observatory to combat gambling addiction

The Observatory, established as an advisory body of the Ministry of Health, has so far not only been a ‘monitoring site’. It represents the fulcrum of a method: defining lines of action for treatment, analysing the effectiveness of interventions, supporting the regions – all the regions – in the planning and coordination of social and health policies. And in fact, the Court of Auditors, in an in-depth resolution of December 2021, had praised its effectiveness, recognising its contribution in promoting ‘regulatory continuity’ between the Balduzzi decree and the subsequent updates of the Lea. Hence a true overall policy that has not left any of the country’s regions behind.

The Observatory abolition represents not only a loss of institutional memory, but also a setback in the State’s ability to govern complex and multidimensional phenomena such as addictions

Its abolition represents not only a loss of institutional memory, but also a setback in the State’s ability to govern complex and multidimensional phenomena such as addictions. It is a sign of disengagement, suggesting a different priority: that of not hindering a growing industry.

Gambling, in fact, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is part of an expanding universe of addictions, which includes online gaming, alcohol, tobacco and junk food consumption. In 2019, with the publication of the Icd-11 (the 11th edition of the International Classification of Addictions, ed.) by the World Health Organisation, the concept of addiction was expanded to include behavioural disorders linked to digital consumption.

However, Italy still lacks an integrated national plan to address the full range of addictions. Although the regions have shown capacity for initiative, they cannot make up for a lack of coordination and structured resources. Fragmentation, amplified by the proposal to abolish the Observatory, risks definitively undermining the possibility of effective interventions.

Policies aimed at financial interests and not public health

The decision to shift responsibility for addictions from a scientific and health body to a logic of co-partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Economy appears symbolic. The Ministry of the Economy, with its role as fiscal manager, cannot be the guarantor of public health. The risk is that political choices will be guided more by budgetary interests than by the protection of citizens.

Is the refractoriness to reconstitute it with a substantial number of adhesions a coincidence? Will we continue to refrain from vigilance and proposals, stopping the pressure force of the gambling industrial-financial complex?

This approach is crudely revealed in Article 66, which provides for a generic reference to ‘pathologies of addiction’ without any sufficient financial commitment and supporting technical bodies, similar to the Gambling Observatory. Reference is made to a general Observatory on ‘pathologies of addiction’, which is supposed to integrate the same lucrative stakeholders on gaming as on health-related productions. This is a negation of what has been achieved so far with the national plan to combat gambling, which has shown how planning and structured funding can make a difference.

The Alea association, together with a vast network of organisations (about 230) and professionals (another 750), called for reflection on the consequences of these choices. The appeal was not only addressed to institutions, but also to society as a whole: practitioners, academics, citizens. The protection of public health cannot be subordinated to market interests.

The appeal aims to rekindle the attention of elected representatives in Parliament, as was the case in the 16th legislature, when a transversal ‘intergroup’ was formed, with the adhesion of 120 deputies and senators, from every group present in the Chamber. Is the refractoriness to reconstitute it with a substantial number of adhesions a coincidence? Will we continue to refrain from vigilance and proposals, stopping the pressure force of the gambling industrial-financial complex?

This article was translated by Kompreno with the support of DeepL.