Share This Article
The Italian gaming market will see considerable gaming law changes within the next 6 to 12 months. The coming into force of laws introducing new types of games and the so called videolotteries (VLT) seems to have considerably increased the potentialities of the Italian online and offline gaming market.
Also, a new law recently empowered the AAMS (the Italian gambling authority) to issue gaming law provisions regulating offline poker which so far was subject to restrictions varying from a municipality to the other. Therefore, operators will be able in the recent future to run gaming halls where not only VLTs and NewSlots can be placed, but also they can run poker tournaments, place Totems for online poker and open betting shops!
In my view, this is an incredible opportunity for gaming operators which obviously will require substantial investments that however are likely to lead to considerable revenues. In this context, the Italian government is carrying out a sort of a “low tax policy” to encourage investments in the gaming sector. The decree on VLTs in fact prescribes that the maximum tax levied on VLT plays will be 4% with the possibility though for the AAMS to set lower tax rates during the start up period of the VLTs’ market.
The gaming law provisions governing VLTs will be more clear in the next future after the issuing by the AAMS of the decrees setting forth the specific rules governing such amusement machines, but the position currently taken by the Italian government appears to set a great playfield for new operators.
We will see the developments of the matter but in the meantime, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio (giulio.coraggio@gmail.com), to discuss. And follow me on my Facebook page, Twitter, Google+ and become one of my friends on LinkedIn.
P.S. This is the first article of this blog, I hope you will enjoy it!
Image courtesy of Flickr by Eve Hawthorn
