Italy’s 2027 budget plan targets €2.6bn from gambling by 2029
Regulation3 min read
Italy’s government expects gambling measures in its 2027 budget plan to raise about €950m in 2027 and €2.6bn by 2029, according to reported analysis of the plan. Proposed changes include higher ordinary levies on slot machines and VLTs, alongside lower rates and higher stake and prize limits for AWP machines that meet new requirements; the measures are estimated to add €1.155bn over three years.
Italy's government expects its 2027 budget bill to bring in about €950m from gambling in 2027 and about €2.6bn by 2029. According to the technical report, adding up the individual items gives €2,586.63m over three years. The amounts relate to the bill presented by the government and may change during parliamentary examination.
The gambling sector paid more than €11.5bn to the tax authorities in 2025. The machine segment is worth about €5bn in tax revenue, of which €3.5bn comes from slot machines and €1.5bn from video lottery terminals. The report describes slots as contracting while VLTs are growing.
The bill raises the ordinary rates of the single tax on gaming (PREU) by one percentage point. For AWP machines the rate would go from 24% to 25%. For VLTs it would go from 8.60% to 9.60%. AWP machines that meet the new parameters would have a 20% rate, with a payout of at least 70%. For these machines the maximum stake would rise from €1 to €2 and the maximum prize from €100 to €200. The government's estimate also assumes that qualifying AWP machines would take 30% more in stakes than in a scenario without the measure.
The measures on machines are expected to produce €334m of additional revenue in 2027. The effect would rise to €365m in 2028 and €456m in 2029, a total of €1,155m over three years. The report notes that PREU is calculated on total stakes and is paid by the concessionaire of the telematic network. The report's author suggests that the pressure could fall on the sums returned to players rather than on operators' margins.
A second source of revenue is the extension of concessions. For slot and VLT networks, the budget sets a fee of €150 per AWP licence and €7,500 per VLT right for the whole extension period. Slots are expected to yield €36.45m over three years, based on about 243,000 licences. The technical report estimates about €463m from video lottery terminals, against 61,737 rights. The technical report also estimates €114.5m a year from extending land-based betting concessions, a total of €343.5m. The bingo extension is worth €21.5m a year, plus €4.64m in 2027 for recalculating fees from 2018 to 2026.
For Gratta e Vinci, the budget provides for extending the concession, which expires in September 2028, to 31 December 2029. The €188m fee would be paid in two instalments in 2027. The calculation revalues the historical fee base for stake growth of 38% from 2009 to 2025 and adds a 32% uplift linked to there being a single concessionaire. The amount is then scaled to the 15 months of extension.
For regularising certain older machines, the budget provides for a one-off payment of €1,000 per machine, with estimated receipts of €15m in 2027. For LAN rooms, the technical report calculates €128.17m over three years from entertainment tax and authorisation fees. That forecast depends on an assumption of growth from about 200 initial rooms to 2,300 at full operation. The technical report notes there is no reliable data on how widespread such rooms currently are.
The budget also seeks to recover part of the 2015 extraordinary levy on the slot and VLT supply chain. Of the €500m originally expected, the technical report shows €89.47m still outstanding. Through a settlement scheme, the government estimates it will recover €71.62m in 2027. The PREU and AWP parameter measures, together with the extension of machine networks, are worth €1,654.5m, about 64% of the total.