Italy awards online gambling licenses

[The Buzz]

Following a lengthy process, Italian gambling authority Agenzia delle dogane e dei monopoli (ADM) yesterday announced a list of approved candidates for online gambling candidates, including some familiar names such as local gambling operator Lottomatica, bet365, The Stars Group, Pinnacle, 1XBet and GVC Holdings.

Rabbit Entertainment Ltd (owner of Lapalingo and Lord Lucky Casino), Lottomatrix Operations Limited, Piper Limited, and Betclic Limited were among the applicants not awarded a concession, or had withdrawn their application.

From Casino News Daily:

Italy was expected to launch the license application process back in the fall of 2017. However, due to multiple delays, ADM eventually began accepting applications from interested operators in January 2018.

The regulator said back then that it would cap the number of concessions available to 120, expecting massive interest from local and international companies. However, it received only 80 applications from around 70 operators by the end of the application process. The concessions were to be granted by the end of 2018, but Italian gambling regulators missed that deadline, as well.

A license for the provision of online gambling services in Italy comes with a €200,000 price tag, which means that the country could have collected €24 million from its concessionaires, if its projections for massive interest in its licenses process proved true. It will now collect significantly less, with the total license fee bill coming at €13.2 million.

And from CalvinAyre.com:

It’s worth noting that Italy’s new licensees filed their applications before the government imposed its draconian new restrictions on gambling advertising and sponsorships, in addition to hiking taxes for both online and land-based gambling operations. But Italy’s market remains second only to the UK in terms of revenue, so it will be interesting to see if the new licensees follow through on their original plans.

Here is a link to the ADM report (in Italian): https://www.adm.gov.it/portale/docum...1-55cb0164785d