On Wednesday, after a week of slipped deadlines and haggling with Brussels, Giorgia Meloni’s Cabinet approved a budget worth approximately €26 billion ($29 billion).
At her press conference afterwards, the prime minister confirmed that €700 million would come from gambling. That is a rounding of the Draft Budgetary Plan sent to Brussels earlier this month, which pencils in €718 million in both 2027 and 2028 and €478 million in 2029.
What Meloni did not say is who will pay. It is “not a budget against anyone”, she insisted; the government had simply asked “those with fewer problems to lend a hand”. Gambling bosses may dispute the description. The precise measures will become clear only once the bill’s articles and technical reports are published. Until then, the industry is doing what it does best: weighing the odds.
The high street pays again
The favourite is the high street. Italy’s licences for slot machines, betting shops and bingo halls expire on 31 December. A three-year effort to redraw the map of where such venues may operate collapsed in August without a deal between Rome and the regions. With no new tenders, the state must extend existing concessions, and it has learned to charge for the privilege. The current extension brings in around €232.76 million a year.
“The final text will show how it’s raised,” says Lucas Zavarise, government and regulatory affairs manager at Gaming Laboratories International, a testing firm. “Reports point mainly to land-based retail, through costlier concession extensions and a possible one-point PREU rise on slots and VLTs , with only limited changes expected online.” PREU, a levy on gaming machine stakes, has long been the Treasury’s lever of first resort.
Quirino Mancini, a partner at WH Partners, a law firm, thinks the sum is achievable. He expects “a combination of higher PREU on the land-based machines and more expensive concession extension fees as opposed to a major increase of the online gambling taxes”. Stefano Sbordoni of Sbordoni & Partners, another law firm, agrees that paid extensions “seem inevitable”. But raising taxes on the shops themselves, he warns, “could kill the business that is already suffering”.
The numbers support him. Slot revenue fell by 5.7% in the second quarter, according to ADM, the regulator. The Court of Auditors estimates gambling tax receipts fell by about €200 million in the first eight months of the year. Not everyone is betting on the high street, either. Milano Finanza, a financial daily, reported that the money would come from the aggio, the commission operators keep on lottery sales, and from online gaming.
Will the money come?
Giulio Coraggio, a partner at DLA Piper, a law firm, doubts the money will materialise at all. “In my view, the target is not achievable, at least not in the way the government expects,” he says. “Whether the money comes from a higher PREU on AWPs [ordinary slot machines with low stakes] and VLTs, more expensive concession extensions or new charges on online, the effect on operators is the same: lower margins.”
Lower margins, he argues, mean worse odds and fewer bonuses. “Players notice that quickly and play less, or move to offshore sites that offer better conditions and pay no tax in Italy.” His conclusion is simple: “The government is setting a target on a market that its own measure will make smaller.”
A promise is a promise
If retail is the favourite, online is the dark horse, and the one that worries lawyers most. Barely a year ago, 46 operators paid €7 million per licence to enter Italy’s overhauled online market, 35 times the old fee. As Mancini puts it, “operators applied for the new online gambling licences only just one year ago on the basis of an established economic framework”.
He concedes that “concession terms do not automatically freeze taxation”. But heavy new charges, he argues, “would greatly undermine the commercial assumptions underpinning the investment, which would prove a major blow to the credibility of the Italian licensing system as a whole”.
In Sbordoni’s reading, tax stability for online licensees is guaranteed “by a primary law for the nine years of concession”. A new levy, he warns, would damage the credibility of the state itself.
There is a practical worry too. Operators are rebuilding their systems to meet ADM’s new technical rules. It is a process so troublesome that the regulator pushed back the deadline, now set for 15 February 2027. With certification still under way, extra financial pressure could “strain operators at a delicate moment”, says Zavarise. And because Italy bans gambling advertising, operators cannot simply market their way out of a bigger bill.
Who really wins
All the experts iGB spoke to fear the same winner: the unlicensed operator. “The main risk is illegal gambling,” says Sbordoni. Mancini warns of “unwanted channel displacement and pushing players in the arms of unlicensed operators”. Coraggio sees retail at risk too. Dearer extensions and a higher PREU “will close the weakest points of sale first, and in many areas the illegal operator is the one who fills the gap”.
Italy’s regulator is not idle. “ADM blocked 44% more unauthorised sites in 2025 than the year before, which is welcome, but while blocking is an important tool, it is not the whole answer,” says Zavarise. Coraggio sees a hard-won asset at stake: “Italy has built one of the highest channelisation rates in Europe over the past fifteen years. It took a long time to build, and it can be lost very quickly.”
Europe’s easy target
In Britain, the Autumn Budget was also delivered on Wednesday. Chancellor John Healey raised machine games duty from 20% to 25% “for higher stakes machines”, he told MPs, while sparing pubs and seaside arcades.
Is gambling becoming Europe’s piggy bank? “Increasingly, yes,” says Zavarise. “The UK and the Netherlands have raised rates, and a 1% EU-wide levy on online gambling. That is now being floated in the European Parliament, although it is unlikely to clear the unanimity hurdle.”
“It is, and the UK shows where this road leads,” says Coraggio. Britain nearly doubled remote gaming duty, from 21% to 40%, in April. Coraggio points to estimates showing a sharp rise in stakes placed with illegal operators in recent years. He grants that “not all of that growth is down to tax, of course. Affordability checks and stake limits have played their part.” The direction, he insists, is clear.
Mancini is more cynical about the motive: “Gambling is increasingly attractive to many European governments as a politically correct source to raise additional tax revenues.” Few voters march in defence of slot machines.
Not over yet
For Italian operators, the game is not finished. Unlike in Britain, where budget measures rarely change much once announced, Mancini notes that Italy’s proposals “will now have to be reviewed, discussed and possibly amended by the Parliament”. The Chamber of Deputies is expected to vote by mid-December and the Senate by the end of the year.
Coraggio has advice for lawmakers. “If the sector has to contribute, the money should come together with a credible plan against illegal operators: blocking payments, removing ads on social media, and finally launching the retail tender. Otherwise, Italy is copying the UK’s mistake a few months after seeing its first results.”