TAR Lombardy overturns Curno betting-shop refusal over distance rules

The Lombardy Regional Administrative Court's Brescia section ruled on 27 October 2026 in favour of a company that challenged the municipality of Curno's refusal to allow betting collection at an existing VLT hall, according to the ruling. The court annulled the municipality's July 2025 denial. It held that the distance rules for gaming machines under Lombardy regional law cannot be applied automatically to betting collection, which requires a separate administrative authorisation.

The company, represented by lawyers Giulio Di Matteo, Luca Giacobbe and Livio Sannino, had asked to add betting collection to the gaming-machine activity it already ran at premises in Curno, in the province of Bergamo. The municipality rejected the request in July 2025, citing a vocational training institute within the minimum distance set for sensitive locations and local planning rules that barred certain activities within 150 metres of residential areas. According to the municipality, neither the regional rules against pathological gambling nor its own planning instruments allowed the betting point to open.

The company argued that the regional prohibition covered the new placement of gaming machines and could not be applied to betting collection. The court distinguished the two activities: betting collection involves accepting stakes on future uncertain events whose outcome lies outside the shop and the machine, while VLT terminals are devices connected to the telematic network of the Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli in which the game system determines the outcome. The court said the activities differ in functional, economic and administrative terms and are subject to separate authorisation regimes.

The court said starting a betting collection service counts as a new opening for administrative purposes even inside premises already authorised for another type of gaming, but that this does not mean the restrictions for gaming machines apply automatically to the new activity. It based its reading on article 5 of Lombardy regional law no. 8 of 2013, which bans the new placement of lawful gambling machines within certain distances of sensitive locations, and on regional council resolution no. 1274 of 2014, which sets the distances and lists the devices concerned, referring to the categories under article 110 of the consolidated public security law.

According to the judges, those provisions do not create a general ban on the whole public gaming sector but set a specific scope covering the placement of gaming machines. The municipality therefore cannot extend the VLT and AWP restrictions to betting collection by analogy without a specific legal provision allowing it. The court said such an interpretation would improperly limit private economic initiative, and that restrictive rules affecting the ability to carry on an economic activity cannot be widened beyond the cases the legislator expressly covers. Municipalities cannot use planning or regulatory instruments to extend the distance regime on their own to categories of activity not covered by regional law, the court said.

The court accepted that protecting public health and preventing gambling dependence are legitimate aims, but said local administrations cannot introduce restrictions without a specific legal basis. It found the municipal measure unlawful because it wrongly treated betting collection as equivalent to the new placement of gaming machines, and annulled the July 2025 denial.