The citizen's income (RDC) «is structured in such a way as not to be able to help people who, by virtue of the gross gaming winnings achieved in the period preceding the request, exceed the income thresholds for access, even if, due to the losses suffered, they still remained poor." Consequently, it is not "unreasonable that the legislator has excluded that it is the duty of the Republic to assign the Rdc to those who, shortly before, ruined themselves by gambling". This is because "it is not poverty due to gambling addiction, but rather gambling addiction itself that represents one of those de facto obstacles that it is the duty of the Republic to remove".
This is what we read in sentence no. 54 of 2024, filed today, with which the Constitutional Court declared unfounded the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised in reference to the articles. 3, second paragraph, and 25 of the Constitution on the provisions of legislative decree no. 4 of 2019, as converted, which criminally sanction the failure to declare gross winnings in order to access the Rdc or maintain it. The issues, raised by the Court of Foggia, concern a person who had requested citizenship income despite failing to declare previous gambling winnings and who had not then communicated the further winnings achieved in the period in which he received the Rdc. Since the provisions of the Rdc expressly prohibit the use of the proceeds for gaming, «[t]he principle of substantial equality, to whose implementation the Rdc is also attributable, certainly cannot be invoked in support of a question of constitutional legitimacy in the interest of those who overturned the fundamental rules of the institute, thus altering its nature".
The sentence then specified that «online gaming takes on the character of any expense, in this case luxury, that the person has made with an income available to him, coinciding with the crediting of the winnings to his gaming account; we cannot, therefore, expect public solidarity to cover such an expense." Since gambling winnings must be declared, without it being possible to consider the related losses, the situation of poverty "in which the person has found himself despite the winnings is, in short, that of someone who, having economic availability, 'he squandered playing."
To reason otherwise, moreover, there would be the risk not only of fueling gambling addiction in those who still suffer from it, but also of creating, in any case, a safety net which would result in a de-responsibilising incentive for gambling, whose risks would in any case be covered by the state benefit of the Rdc". The sentence also excluded the violation of the principle of determinacy of the criminal law referred to in art. 25 of the Constitution, because, despite a complex set of references, it is possible to deduce from the legislation the obligation to declare and communicate gross winnings; moreover, on a practical level, given the aforementioned complexity, «the possibility, recognized by the art. 5, paragraph 1, of the aforementioned decree, to submit Rdc requests to the tax assistance centres".
Below is the full text of the sentence:
