Friedman Institute urges Italian government to clarify gaming revenue plans

The Milton Friedman Institute has asked Italy's Ministry of Economy and Finance to clarify how the higher gaming revenue planned in the budget document for 2027-2029 would be raised. The institute said the Documento programmatico di bilancio (DPB) forecasts additional resources from gaming without specifying the legislative measures that would produce them.

According to the institute, the DPB estimates additional resources from gaming equal to 0.03% of GDP in 2027 and 2028, and 0.02% in 2029. Dario Peirone, general director of the Milton Friedman Institute, said companies and operators have the right to know whether the government intends a new tax increase, a reshaping of existing levies or measures targeting specific segments of the sector.

The institute said public gaming in Italy provides 145,000 jobs and about €11.5bn a year to the treasury, of which €8.9bn comes from the land-based network alone. It said the machines segment has been contracting for some time, with a net loss of almost 10,000 workers between 2018 and 2025.

Peirone said a further tax increase would bring about the collapse of land-based gaming, which he said is already constrained by bureaucratic and tax pressure. He said an additional economic burden would accelerate the closure of legal businesses, destroy jobs and reduce the state's own tax revenue.

Peirone also pointed to the so-called waterbed effect, which he said could affect public security. He said demand for gambling does not fall to zero when taxes rise but shifts, and that compressing the legal supply would benefit organised crime and clandestine platforms, weakening state control and missing the budget targets.

The institute said uncertainty over the territorial reorganisation of concessions and the absence of transitional regulatory protections for companies add to the pressure on the sector. Peirone asked the government to end the stalemate and provide legal certainty to businesses, and said further extensions of machine concessions, made necessary by the missing territorial reorganisation, should carry no additional charges.