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DID THE INDUSTRY CRY WOLF OVER ITALY? Tim Poole looks back at the dramatic quotes of late 2018, when Italy decided to ban gambling advertising, and wonders if the success of the market since has undermined those who argued against the move
“It's an insane law that goes against the recommendation of the European Union” - Niklas Lindahl, 2018
In September 2018, Quirino Mancini was adamant. The gaming lawyer told a sports betting conference: “I still have nightmares when I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking about how stupid, short-sighted and biased this was, and how dangerous the precedent it sets – that could spread out across Europe – is.” What horror was he referring to? It could have been anything, based on that description, depending on how vivid your imagination can be. Step aside Agatha Christie, the gambling
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industry has its own thriller in the works... Yet in actual fact, Mancini was discussing the Dignity Decree, the Italian law that was to outlaw gambling advertising from 1 January 2019. And, in hindsight, you have to wonder what all the fuss was about. Advertising was duly banned in Italy: there has not been any “dangerous” spread throughout Europe since and most strikingly – as we will explore later – Italy’s gaming revenues have not suffered in the slightest. So it begs the question: did the gaming
industry cry wolf about Italian advertising? It was not just Mancini, of course, who derided this law, although the associate at Tonucci & Partners was unequivocal in his view of it. He continued: “The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Luigi Di Maio, came up with this proposition to get the gambling threat out, because he kept talking about very desperate people that go to the nearby slot outlet every day. The beauty is this will continue as usual. The ban hits the pure online operators because it prohibits
