This speech provides an analysis of gambling sector’s trends in Italy during last ten years, comparing those with rates of prevalence of problem gambling available by existing surveys and making references to changes of attitudes toward gambling in social and political scenario. Gambling in Italy has had an impressive evolution during last decade. There had been at first a progressive introduction of several new games and consequent growth of legal gambling turnover and channelling of volumes from the illegal circuit. Then, late 2011 there had been a sudden change of attitudes of public opinions, media and politicians, mostly driven by motions raised by third sector’s entities. While social impact of gambling had been overlooked or even ignored for many years, then more recently problem gambling had been asserted as a social alarm. Data and information regarding problem and pathological gambling has been often spread by not specialised media and sources, creating uncertainty on the actual social impact of gambling. It is now on-going a legislative process aiming to reorganize the whole sector (also) for minor and vulnerable people better protection. This study aims to favour calm and reasonable evaluations of current situation for better policy makers’ decisions.
See the presentation:
20140912_G_CARBONI_TRENDS OF ITALIAN GAMBLING AND ITS IMPACT_EASG_HELSINKI