Legal gambling generates around €12 billion per year in tax revenues. In 2024, net expenditure amounted to €21 billion. But what has been defined as “the mother of all battles” is against illegal gambling—particularly online—which is worth between €20 and €25 billion, corresponding to €2 billion annually in lost tax revenues.
According to research by Agic Confindustria (the Association for Licensed Gaming and Entertainment) in collaboration with Luiss Business School, 14% of players unknowingly access illegal channels, unable to distinguish between legal and illegal operators. “Combating illegal gambling requires an integrated approach and strong collaboration among all stakeholders,” said Giuliano Guinci of Eurobet Italia, who stressed the need for companies in the sector to have “the opportunity to communicate with transparency and responsibility.”
For Mario Lollobrigida, Director of Gaming at the Customs and Monopolies Agency, there is “a low or almost non-existent perception of the harmful aspects of this phenomenon: there are sports clubs in Italy that accept sponsorships from illegal gaming operators.”
The Italian regulated gambling market remains one of the largest in Europe, generating €21.6 billion in GGR in 2025 and €11.5 billion in tax revenue. However, the land-based sector has operated for years under repeated extensions, fragmented local regulations, and expired or postponed concessions.
AGIC – Associazione Gioco e Intrattenimento in Concessione, which represents the market’s leading operators – highlighted, in a document presented today in Rome, the critical issues that could arise if the reform is not implemented.
Following an initial phase in which the sector was centrally managed by AAMS, now ADM, Regions and Municipalities have introduced their own regulations in recent years, mainly on public health grounds, restricting the location and opening hours of gaming outlets. This overlap of local rules has created an inconsistent regulatory system which, as also noted by the Council of State, hinders both the planning of the gaming network and the launch of tenders for retail concessions.
AGIC, the association bringing together the main concession operators in the public gaming sector, expresses strong concern over the data contained in the 2026 Report to Parliament on addiction, which documents an increase in minors’ involvement in gambling — a phenomenon that is by definition illegal, given the ban on access for minors — and a broader spread of behavioural addictions, from digital addiction to online and land-based gambling.
The numbers are clear: according to the Report, in 2025, 60% of students gambled at least once in the previous year, with the share of “at-risk” and “problematic” profiles increasing compared with 2024. These are figures that AGIC has no intention of downplaying: they confirm that the problem exists, affects increasingly younger age groups, and requires concrete responses.
Precisely for this reason, the Association reiterates a distinction that the Report itself effectively confirms: underage gambling is, by definition, a phenomenon that takes place outside the legal perimeter, often through channels lacking effective age and identity controls.
