Share This Article
The Italian gambling authority held an online session with the current license holders where it clarified some of the changes that will be introduced with the new online gaming license regime.
The new Italian online gambling license regime is expected to be a substantial change compared to the past. Italy already has one of the most complex and structured regimes for online gambling with the platforms exchanging real time messages with the servers of the regulator to monitor the proper performance of the gaming activity. The regime applicable to new licenses will introduce additional obligations to increase the safety of the gambling activity and prevent gaming addiction. This change comes with considerable obligations for operators.
According to the information publicly available, the most relevant changes are the following:
1. The Timing of the New Tender: The rules of the new tender will be notified to the European Commission and will consequently be subject to the 3-month “stand still” period which might extend the time when the tender will be launched. Accordingly, even though all the current remote gaming licenses will expire at the end of 2024, it seems that the regulator will not be able to launch a new tender and award new licenses by that deadline. Besides, for operators that are not awarded with a new license, it appears that a 6 month period will be granted to shut down their operations and return the gaming accounts’ balances to players.
2. The Required Changes to Technical Infrastructure: The image below shows the new architecture of how the technical infrastructure of Italian licensed remote gambling operators shall be structured. Each operator shall have its own gaming account system that will be connected to a system managing the gaming activities and to the different platforms relating to each category of game and each provider. The system shall be certified both by the regulator, ADM, and by testing labs accredited with the Italian gambling authority. This is most relevant change that will be introduced and ADM will have to publish technical specifications to provide more details.
3. The New Regime Applicable to Shops: New rules will be introduced to regulate shops that sell vouchers to top up gaming accounts, the so-called OVRs. Such shops shall be enrolled in a registry with ADM, pay an annual fee and subject to limitations on the amount of deposits per player that can be handled per week. On this topic, you can read this article “Italian Gambling Payments Face New Regulatory Hurdles to Be Solved“.
4. Prohibitions Applicable to Skins: Skins will be prohibited, each operator shall have a single top level “.it” domain name and an App, while the current regime allows to have a multitude of domain names per license provided that players have a single gaming account per license. This is a considerable restriction that led to major discussions, and some operators whose business is focused on multiple brands are trying to find workarounds.
You can read more information on the new Italian gambling license regime at the following article “New Italian Rules on the Online Gambling Regime and Licenses Approved“. Also, we ran a webinar on the topic whose recording is available at the following link “New Italian Online Gambling License Regime and Tender: What You Need to Know“.
