TAR Lombardy overturns Curno refusal of betting service in VLT hall

The Lombardy Regional Administrative Court's Brescia section has annulled a decision by the municipality of Curno refusing permission to operate betting collection inside an existing VLT hall, according to a judgment published on 27 October 2026. The court upheld the appeal against the municipality and annulled the refusal, the judgment states.

The dispute concerns a company represented by lawyers Giulio Di Matteo, Luca Giacobbe and Livio Sannino. The company applied in April 2025 to open a betting hall where a gaming hall already operated. Curno issued a negative opinion, citing the failure to meet a minimum distance of 500 metres from a school and a planning restriction of 150 metres from residential areas. On 28 July 2025 the municipal administration formalised the refusal, holding that betting collection was incompatible with regional and municipal rules on the location of gaming activities.

The company challenged the measure, arguing through its lawyers that the regional distance rule concerned specifically the new placement of gaming machines and could not be extended automatically to betting collection. The court agreed, distinguishing the two activities: betting consists of collecting stakes on the outcome of future and uncertain events, while VLTs are machines in which the result is determined by the gaming system itself. According to the court, these are distinct activities in functional, economic and administrative terms, subject to different authorisation and concession regimes.

The judgment also states that starting betting collection inside an already authorised VLT hall constitutes a new opening in administrative terms and therefore requires a specific authorisation. That circumstance, the court held, does not automatically bring the restrictions for new machine installations into effect.

The court interpreted Article 5 of Lombardy regional law No 8 of 2013, which sets out measures to prevent and counter pathological gambling. According to the judges, the provision makes the new placement of lawful gambling machines the object of the restrictions, not the whole public gaming sector. The judgment states: "Ne consegue che la limitazione decisa dal Comune con riguardo alla raccolta delle scommesse non trova alcun fondamento nella disciplina regionale".

The court also excluded that municipal administrations may extend such restrictions on their own through planning instruments, regulations or ordinances in the absence of a specific regional legislative provision. It observed that Lombardy introduced location constraints for AWP and VLT machines without providing equivalent limits for betting collection points, and that a municipality cannot use its territorial planning powers to add restrictions to economic activities authorised under the state concession system.

In the case at hand, the court found that Curno had applied to betting collection rules referring to a different type of activity. It concluded that the refusal rested on an erroneous legal premise, namely treating betting collection as equivalent to the new installation of gaming machines. Because the failure to meet distances from sensitive places was the only ground the municipality gave, that error made the measure unlawful.

The judgment does not introduce a general authorisation to open betting points inside VLT halls, nor does it remove the need to meet the specific authorisation requirements in force. It establishes that in Lombardy the distance limits set for the new placement of machines cannot be extended automatically to betting collection.