Italy expects to start a legislative overhaul of land-based gaming, progressing on the mandate to modernise and merge laws, standards and securities across 20 autonomous regions and 110 municipalities.
Following a near two-years of negotiations with local authorities, Giorgia Meloni's government is anticipated to publish a 'draft decree' on new laws applied to the management of video gaming device networks. Articles will use nationally to franchise operators of slot machines, bingo halls and VLT systems.
As reported by AgiproNews, which has detailed crucial settlements of the reform to SBC News, the draft decree will be submitted to the Council of Ministers for review and endorsement under Italy's fiscal delegation structure.
Once approved at cabinet level, the legislation will continue to the Joint State-Regions Conference and relevant parliamentary committees, with no set timeline yet set for application.
The prolonged negotiation process has been led by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), led by Deputy Minister Maurizio Leo, along with Roberto Alesse and Mario Lollobrigida, regard of President and Head of Gaming at Italy's Agency of Customs and Monopolies (ADM) - the company supervising the betting market.
Retail follows online shakeup
Tough negotiations focused on reconciling national regulatory consistency with regional level of sensitivities surrounding tax, potential earnings losses, compensation systems and regional budgeting impacts.
The land-based reform types part of a wider restructuring of Italy's betting structure, which the Meloni federal government intentionally divided into separate phases for online and retail gaming.
The very first required prioritised the overhaul of Italy's online gambling routine, which entered force in November 2025, introducing brand-new licensing, tax and compliance requirements for digital operators.
Attention has now moved to the retail sector, where early indicators recommend a considerable rationalisation of Italy's gaming footprint tied carefully to customer security and harm-prevention objectives.
The variety of outlets permitted to host slot makers including bars, tobacconists and gaming halls - is expected to fall by around 10%, minimizing the national overall to around 40,000 locations.
Betting stores will stay capped at 10,000 nationwide, while the longstanding distinction between specialised wagering stores and "wagering corners" within hospitality venues will be eliminated.
Machine numbers will also be scaled back, with slots projected to decrease from approximately 240,000 systems to 200,000, while VLT volumes will be reduced by around 20% - from 55,000 to 46,000 gadgets.
Protection sweep
A central pillar of the reform will be the introduction of an accreditation routine managed by the ADM. Licences and franchises will be needed to demonstrate compliance with enhanced standards on gamer security, betting harm prevention and robust controls to avoid underage access.
AgiproNews keeps in mind that the guiding principles of the reform are "the steady rationalisation of the retail network and the conditioning of customer security throughout all betting channels."
New minimum range guidelines from so-called "sensitive places" will also be formalised, with accredited locations based on a 100-metre buffer and non-certified outlets to 200 metres.
These zones will consist of secondary schools, addiction treatment centres and health center facilities - changing a regulative patchwork that has actually long differed between areas.
The draft decree will even more enforce tighter controls on opening hours, mandating day-to-day closure periods of 6 and a half hours for accredited places and eight hours for non-certified properties.
Alongside the structural reforms, the federal government is preparing new concession tenders for gaming machines, betting and bingo operations, anticipated to be released by year-end and forecasted to produce close to EUR2bn in new tax incomes.
Big Beast market
The settlement period corresponded with a competitive debt consolidation across Italy's land-based betting sector. In 2024, a freshly listed Lottomatica strengthened its retail supremacy through the EUR650m acquisition of SKS365, to take control of its +1,100 PlanetWin betting/arcade franchises.
