Budget Law provisions for 2015 expressly empower the Ministry of Finance following the proposal of the Italian gambling authority ADM, to adopt by decree any possible measure to sustain the offer of specific gambling products that suffered a loss – both in terms of collection and tax return – of not less than 15% per year in the last three years.
Such provision makes it easier to update the taxation, the return to players and the bet amount for these gambling products.
There is no question the Budget law provisions is applicable to some lottery games and to horse betting products.
Indeed, since their introduction, horse-betting products did not take any advantage of the qualitative and quantitative gambling offer development or the decrease of the applicable taxes and contributions unlike most of gambling products existing or progressively introduced on both the offline and online Italian gambling markets.
Moreover, while horse-betting product was left immobilized, it had to face the introduction of highly competitive products such as virtual (horse) bets.
At now, the specific aim of the Budget Law provision is to ensure a service level enhancement for these gambling products in order to shield their offer, protect the value of the relevant licenses while maintaining a safe competition among the different licensees.
But the provision makes it clear that these measures shall not imply any State revenue liability as gambling licensed activities are commercial activities and licensees shall therefore suffer the risks of their entrepreneurial choices.
