The Italian Government has introduced before the Parliament the Budget Bill for 2015, providing for 1 billion Euros coming from the land based gambling sector.
Should the current bill be confirmed as it is, the AWP and VLT characterizing the major land based gambling offer in Italy would face an increase of 4% each of the relevant taxation – instead of current AWP tax at 12.7% of the coin-in turnover and VLT taxation at 5% of the turnover (please refer to previous Egla post “Why tax rates of VLT and AWP are so different?”), starting from April 2015.
According to the Bill, such increase is coupled with a significant lowering of their payout of gaming machines, fixed at a minimum rate of 70% for AWP and 81% for VLT, thus determining a loser situation for the player.
Moreover, AWP and VLT licensees would have to arrange for the additional tax payment, while Sogei – the technological partner of the Italian gambling authority – should still need time to arrange for AWP cards and VLT systems up-to-date certification.
Should these changes effectively take place, the sustainability of the land based gambling sector may be at risk, with a probable drop-out of current licensees and a concentration of the market on few big players.
The change in the taxation, requested for offline and online sports betting switching to a 20% gross gaming revenue regime, seems to be far to happen or at least from Government intention while it had received in March 2014 a specific empowerment by the Parliament to review the games taxation by mid-2015 according to the Fiscal Delegation Law.
