SAPAR opposes reported PREU increase for AWP and VLT machines in Italy

SAPAR has said it is concerned by reports that Italy's 2027 budget could raise the single tax on gaming machines, the PREU, by one percentage point for AWP and VLT machines. The association said the measure is among the most likely scenarios, alongside more costly three-year extensions of concessions, including those for amusement machines.

Sergio D'Angelo, president of SAPAR, said a further increase in the PREU would be very dangerous for the survival of small and medium-sized companies operating in public gaming. He said he was thinking above all of operators and companies that ensure the machine network runs across the country, which he said provide employment, face rising costs and meet increasingly complex obligations. Many are already under pressure, he said, and adding a new tax burden without addressing the sector's structural problems risks pushing them beyond the limit.

D'Angelo said a single percentage point may appear small, but for an operator it must be measured against the actual margins of the business. He said the effect does not stop at a balance-sheet item: it can lead to forgoing investment, reducing the number of machines managed and, in the hardest cases, closing a business. He also said the sector is probably the only one where entertainment activity is predominant over winnings, describing it as pure entertainment, and that players of SuperEnalotto, Lotto or betting do so to win rather than to have fun.

SAPAR said it is also concerned about the possible combination of measures. If the PREU increase is added to significantly more costly concession extensions, the economic pressure on the sector would grow further, the association said. It said any decision on revenue must be accompanied by an assessment of its effects on the different parties in the network, including management companies with less capacity to absorb new costs.

The SAPAR president said the state certainly has the right and duty to plan its revenue, but must ask whether an additional levy is sustainable over time and what effect it produces on a network that already struggles to plan its future. He said that if smaller companies leave the market and the presence of legal supply shrinks, employment, territorial coverage and the very capacity to maintain controlled collection are affected, and that expected revenue should also be examined in light of these consequences.

The association said the machines segment is still waiting for an organic reorganisation of land-based gaming, and that the absence of a stable framework makes investment decisions and product renewal more difficult. SAPAR said a discussion is needed on measures that allow the legal network to remain sustainable and strengthen player-protection tools.

D'Angelo recalled that SAPAR has long proposed working on renewed AWP machines with a payout of 70%, a maximum win of €200, more effective prevention messages and a rebalancing of the PREU. He said the proposal should be examined as a whole, with technical checks on its economic effects and on protections, and that the budget should be the occasion to start this discussion rather than to further increase the burden on a segment still awaiting reorganisation.

SAPAR asked the government and the competent institutions to listen to all parts of the supply chain before taking definitive decisions on the PREU increase. The association said it is available to present its assessments and to contribute to an analysis of the effects of the various hypotheses on revenue, companies, employment and the territorial network. D'Angelo concluded that defending operators and small and medium-sized companies means defending an essential part of regulated public gaming, and asked that their resilience become a concrete criterion in the budget choices.