With a ruling dated 6 December 2023, the Council of State rejected the appeal of a gaming machine operator against the ordinance of the Municipality of Sassari which imposes time limitations on the operation of slot machines.
For the CDS "the measures are supported by adequate investigation and motivation as they are based on the concrete danger of spreading the phenomenon in the municipal territory; they are also proportionate in relation to the objective pursued since they impose an hourly limitation that allows the use of automatic machines every day from 10,00 to 13,00 and from 18,00 to 23,00, or until 01,00 .XNUMX for places used as betting shops.
Furthermore, a union ordinance regulating the hours of gaming halls cannot be considered vitiated by deficit of investigation or motivation only so that the number of gambling addicts is not absolutely high, since what must be considered most of all is the trend recorded in the period considered, which, alone, causes alarm in the public bodies responsible for health protection and justifies the adoption of restrictive measures. In fact, jurisprudence has long established itself on the principle according to which the provision of time limitations is a suitable tool for combating the phenomenon of gambling addiction (see Council of State, section V, 27 July 2023 n. 7345 and 26 August 2020 n. . 5225).
The contested ordinances introduce measures suitable for fulfilling this purpose and proportionate to it, regulating the opening hours of commercial establishments without imposing any separation of AWP equipment from the national telematic network, contrary to what is claimed by the appellant. The fact that, during the period of non-functioning of the equipment, they do not transmit data to the network is a mere consequence of the non-use of the equipment and does not constitute any forced detachment which the ordinances neither contemplate nor impose.
Likewise unfounded is the complaint of illegitimacy for the different regulation of opening hours between the so-called promiscuous premises referred to in the art. 86 TULPS and the gaming halls referred to in art. 88 of the same consolidated act, given that the different time regulation is justified by the diversity of the gaming offer which in mixed-use premises is accompanied and added to that of other goods and services, a circumstance which, on the one hand, reduces the economic impact of the limitation for the operator, and, on the other hand, it makes the approach to gaming easier for those who enter the venue for different purposes.
The time differentiation, therefore, is proportionate and consistent with the objectives of combating gambling addiction that the measures aim to pursue.
The considerations made above also lead to the rejection of the complaint relating to the lack of proof of correlation between the gambling phenomenon and the different time regulation of the exercises.
In this regard, it is worth observing that the ordinances in question respond to a logic not of repression of the pathology through the identification and elimination of the cause, but rather of mere precaution and containment of the risk of diffusion that an unregulated gaming offer can to determine.
The contested orders were, in fact, issued on the basis of a report from the ASL of Sassari relating to pathological gambling containing the data relating to the patients taken care of by the addiction service of the same ASL which specifies that in the first half of the In 2016, the subjects subjected to treatment, as suffering from pathological gambling addiction, in the city of Sassari alone were n. 41, but that the so-called potential user, made up of subjects affected by the same addiction but not treated, was equal to n. 205 users with negative repercussions also on their family members.
It follows that the measures in question are supported by adequate investigation and motivation as they are based on the concrete danger of spreading the phenomenon in the municipal territory; they are also proportionate in relation to the objective pursued since they impose an hourly limitation that allows the use of automatic machines every day from 10,00 to 13,00 and from 18,00 to 23,00, or until 01,00 .XNUMX for places used as betting shops.
As already observed by this Section, it is not the administration's burden to demonstrate that the gaming machines subject to hourly regulation are more or less dangerous than other gaming services, it being a well-known circumstance that the machines whose use is affected by the contested act compete to an incisive extent to increase the spread and worsening of gambling addictions (Cons. Stato, section V, 19 July 2023, n. 7078).
