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Italy is no stranger to gambling. From the smoky betting shops tucked away in small-town piazzas to online sportsbooks powering Saturday night Serie A wagers, games of chance are stitched into the country’s cultural fabric. But while Italians have always gambled, the rules governing how, where, and with whom they can do it have shifted dramatically over the past decade.
Now, in 2025, Italy is attempting the boldest transformation yet—an overhaul so sweeping it could reset the balance of power in Europe’s gambling sector. At its core are two seismic changes:
- A nine-year licensing regime with a record-breaking entry fee of €7 million per licence—enough to shut the door on smaller operators.
- A potential rollback of the 2018 advertising ban, the so-called “Dignity Decree,” which critics say handed the black market a free pass.
Together, these reforms could deliver a safer, cleaner market where only the strongest survive. But they could also backfire, concentrating power in too few hands while failing to draw players away from unlicensed sites.
The outcome won’t just reshape Italy. It will send ripples across a European landscape where regulators from Madrid to Vilnius are grappling with the same questions: how much visibility is too much, how much control is enough, and who gets to decide?
The long shadow of the dignity decree
To understand Italy’s gamble, you have to go back to 2018. At the time, the government was riding a wave of populist sentiment, promising to crack down on predatory industries. Gambling, often painted as a social ill, became an easy target.
The Dignity Decree banned all forms of gambling advertising and sponsorship. Overnight, betting companies vanished from billboards, TV spots, and, most notably, football shirts. Serie A, once dominated by logos from bookmakers, suddenly looked stripped bare.
The intention was noble: reduce problem gambling by removing its visibility. But the reality has been harsher. Licensed operators were silenced, but unlicensed ones weren’t. Offshore casinos and sportsbooks continued to market themselves aggressively online, beyond the reach of Italian regulators.
By 2024, evidence mounted that the ban had driven players toward the black market rather than protecting them. The Italian Football Federation estimated that clubs had lost €180 million in sponsorship revenue. Media companies, once beneficiaries of advertising contracts, turned to other industries. And crucially, problem gambling rates did not fall as expected.
Now, seven years later, lawmakers are acknowledging the ban didn’t work. A Senate commission has called for a rethink, suggesting that a controlled reintroduction of advertising—with strict limits on audience targeting, bonus promotion, and mandatory responsible gambling messages—may be the only way to claw players back into the legal market.
A license only the giants can afford
While the advertising debate plays out, another reform has already redrawn the map: Italy’s new licensing tender.
Where once an operator needed €200,000 to secure a license, today they need €7 million upfront, plus significant guarantees. The government has already banked €365 million from the tender, more than expected, and the process doesn’t close until November 2025.
The ADM (Italy’s customs and monopolies authority) designed the system to deliberately shrink the field. Only operators with robust finances and advanced compliance systems will survive. Analysts predict the number of active operators will fall from 80+ to around 30–35.
The requirements are not just financial. Operators must:
- Integrate with ADM’s central system for real-time monitoring.
- Deploy AI-powered compliance tools to detect suspicious behaviour.
- Eliminate multi-brand “skins,” forcing each licence to operate under a single domain.
- Cooperate with authorities in anti-money-laundering and fraud detection.
Italy is betting that this stricter model will restore integrity and reduce legal loopholes. But it also risks consolidating too much power into the hands of a few giants. Already, Lottomatica and Flutter Entertainment (SNAI and Sisal) have locked in five licenses each, effectively cementing their dominance. Foreign brands like Betsson, LeoVegas, Novomatic, and Stanleybet remain in play, while ambitious newcomers—Stake, DAZN Bet, Marathonbet—see Italy as worth the gamble despite the steep entry costs.
By 2026, when the new system is fully operational, Italy’s market could be worth more than €5.5 billion in online GGR, making it the second-largest in Europe. But the rewards will only flow to those who can keep pace with Italy’s new expectations.
Europe’s patchwork puzzle
Italy’s changes don’t exist in a vacuum. Across Europe, gambling regulation is increasingly fragmented, with each country pulling in its own direction.
- Belgium and Lithuania are going all-in on near-total bans. Lithuania will soon even ban affiliate links in reviews.
- Spain restricts ads to between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., bans celebrities, and outlaws public bonus promotions.
- Germany allows advertising under strict conditions: no daytime exposure, no public bonuses, and strict youth protections.
- The Netherlands enforces the infamous “95% rule,” demanding almost perfect certainty that ads reach only those over 24.
- Norway, meanwhile, runs a state monopoly but is plagued with trust-destroying technical failures.
- Malta remains relatively permissive, positioning itself as Europe’s gambling hub.
For multinational operators, the result is skyrocketing compliance costs. Marketing campaigns must be rewritten for every jurisdiction, affiliates must be policed with surgical precision, and strategies that work in one country may be illegal in another.
Italy’s rethink, then, is not just domestic. If Rome can show that carefully regulated advertising restores balance without inflaming problem gambling, it may inspire others to revisit their own bans. If it fails, the opposite lesson will spread just as quickly.
Norway: A lesson in lost trust
If Italy needs a reminder of what’s at stake, it can look north to Norway. There, the state-run monopoly Norsk Tipping was supposed to be the safest model of all. Instead, 2025 has been a year of disaster.
- In June, 47,000 Eurojackpot players were wrongly told they had won prizes, with 30,000 falsely notified of multimillion payouts.
- In April, a Super Draw glitch excluded 16,698 players while falsely creating 52 new millionaires.
- For years, syndicate players unknowingly enjoyed skewed odds in ~375 draws, undermining fairness.
- Other failures included a NOK 25 million overpayment and a broken self-exclusion tool for iOS lasting four months.
The regulator has threatened fines of up to NOK 46 million (€4m), accusing Norsk Tipping of “gross negligence.”
The lesson is clear: no model, however strict, survives without credibility. For Italy, visibility and compliance will mean nothing if players don’t trust the system.
What operators must do
For operators targeting Italy, success under the new regime demands more than money. It requires a complete recalibration of strategy:
- Compliance at Scale
– Deploy AI-driven monitoring, tamper-proof reporting, and seamless integration with ADM’s central system. - Responsible Advertising
– If the ban is eased, design campaigns that are tightly age-gated, RG-focused, and bonus-free in public. - Affiliate Policing
– Treat affiliates as extensions of the brand. One misstep by a partner could trigger penalties for the operator. - Operational Resilience
– Ensure no Norwegian-style failures. Italian regulators will not forgive outages, bugs, or misconfigurations. - M&A Readiness
– With fewer licences available, consolidation is inevitable. Smaller brands may only survive by merging into larger ecosystems.
The road ahead
By late 2025, Italy will know which operators have paid the €7 million price of admission. By early 2026, the advertising question may also be settled. Together, these two reforms will define whether Italy becomes a model of balance—or another cautionary tale.
For players, the hope is a safer, more transparent market where legal operators can compete fairly against illegal ones. For clubs and media, it’s a chance to reclaim lost sponsorship and advertising revenue. For regulators, it’s the chance to prove that strict oversight and visibility can coexist.
But the risk is just as great. If the system ends up concentrating power, stifling innovation, or failing to stem the black market, Italy may find itself in the same position as Norway: a market designed to protect consumers, but one that has lost their trust.
Where the chips fall
Italy is raising the stakes. By pricing out the small players, rethinking its advertising rules, and demanding industrial-strength compliance, it is betting big on a future where only the most responsible, resilient, and well-funded operators thrive.
The next 18 months will reveal whether that bet pays off—or whether the house, once again, wins.
