According to the latest data available (Caritas based on Nomisma survey published last year) in Italy over a million people gamble for a total of approximately 140 million working days spent in front of a slot machine or other forms of betting while they are over 150 billion turned over of euros in 2023 with a growth of over 14 billion compared to the previous year.
As reported by the research “Black Book of Gambling. Mafias, Addictions, Youth“, edited by Cgil and Federconsumatori, we know that “the Southern regions are at the top of the list of areas of the country where – on average, in 2023 – there have been 1.926 euros spent per capita in gambling. And it is growing in an impressive way. online game: a 67% jump in four years, with a total expenditure of 82 billion in 2023". Other numbers on the size of online and offline gaming can be found on the website of responsiblegame.info.
Further data, in particular on the number of people affected by chronic gambling addiction are difficult to find. First of all because it is complex clinical diagnosis of subjects who can be defined as "gambling addicts". As the psychiatrist claimed Alfio Lucchini “gambling addiction is not immediately recognizable either by those who suffer from it or by those close to them because, unlike addictions to substances or alcohol, it does not immediately manifest itself in a physical dependence but only as a mental dependence, which is more difficult and slow to ascertain”. Furthermore, this pathology is often associated and sometimes confused with others no less devastating than alcoholism. It follows that it is complex to carry out a statistical survey updated and reliable. We read on the ISS (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) website: “… in Italy over a third of the population, corresponding to 36,4% (about 18.450.000 individuals), admitted to having gambled at least once in the previous twelve months. Of these, 8,3% (approximately 1.500.000 people) were identified as problem gamblers”.
Gambling, yes or no to its advertising?
The theme has returned to great topicality just in the last few days when in Senate Culture Committee a "policy act" was voted on for the drafting of the new Sports Law. This theme has been added to the political debate with the aim of overcoming the limitations imposed by the Law of 2018, the so-called Dignity Decree, with which banned the advertising of bets in sporting events. It was exactly what was expected at theArticle 9 of the DL2018, n. 87, which prohibits "any form of advertising, even indirect, relating to games or bets with monetary winnings as well as gambling, however carried out and on any medium, including sporting, cultural or artistic events, television or radio broadcasts, daily and periodical press, publications in general, billboards and computer, digital and telematic channels, including social media". The Senator's initiative Paolo Marcheschi (Fdi) who proposed the address act would instead like reintroduce this possibility, that is, to advertise the world of betting in stadiums and therefore during television broadcasts.
Distinguish between legal and illegal gambling
The theme, the central question is to try to locate the dividing line between what legal “game” and managed by the State from what is illicit and managed more or less in a way "clandestine" precisely that world around which the serious phenomenon of gambling addiction develops and spreads. Football betting on TV and on various dedicated sites or apps encourage the spread of the "gambling culture". It has reached the point where you can bet in real time on individual episodes of a match in progress, minute by minute, goal by goal. The text approved by the Culture Commission instead, with the pretext of wanting to give economic support to the world of sport, is headed precisely in this direction, that is, to feed this "culture" ofillusion of easy and immediate money winningsOn the one hand, one would like to bring out the undergrowth of clandestine betting but, in fact, gambling is fueled without other terms.
It is worth remembering that the 2018 Dignity Decree was approved following a widespread awareness of the Gambling problem as a social plague which the same parties now in government forcefully raised. first was Giorgia Meloni in Parliament to declare years ago that "Thinking of continuing to make money with gambling means paying very high social costs tomorrow" and then Matteo Salvini who argued “I would like a country that does not live on gambling, slot machines and video poker, let's scrap them. Because a state that lives on gambling is a failed state”. What has changed since then?
So here is the problem is spreading and affecting the entire gaming world which provide for cash winnings where the first subject that benefits greatly from it is the State itself which encourages and supports it. Just look at the Customs and Monopolies Agency website to get a sense of how extensive the perimeter of the game of chance is.
But what exactly is meant by gambling?
We close with a interrogative whose answer can provide a key to solving the problems highlighted: what is meant exactly with “gambling”? Treccani: “A recreational activity in which the aim is to make a profit and in which the winning or losing is predominantly random, with skill playing a negligible role. They can give rise to a pathological condition of dependence consisting of the chronic inability to resist the impulse to gamble, with consequences that can be seriously negative for the individual, his family and his professional activities”. In this sense, slot machines, lotteries, scratch cards, online poker, sports betting, bingo, casino games and online casinos are considered gambling.
From this point of view, Rai, the Public Radio and Television Service, also plays its part. The flagship programme on Rai Uno in prime time, Your business, it's all focused squarely on gambling where no skill, knowledge or competence of the player is expected but only chance, chance fortuitous, precisely “gamble”. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the show enjoys so much success.
