The conference promoted and organized by the Milton Friedman Institute, called "Game: one market, one reorganization", took place yesterday, Wednesday 13 December 2023, at 19.00 pm, in the press room of the Chamber of Deputies.
The reorganization of online gaming and physical gaming in the gaming sector must necessarily take place at the same time. For the first time, most of the trade associations representing the legal gaming sector in Italy: ACADI, SAPAR, ASTRO, EGP-FIPE, Logico and ACMI presented themselves united and compact to denounce the risks faced by the sector if the Government does not adopt correct and uniform regulatory and economic policies, simultaneously reforming the rules that affect the entire sector and not just some segments of the same market, thus generating disparities between the different products and segments of the same, also impacting asymmetrically on the healthcare policy of user protection.
The meeting saw the participation of the most representative trade associations in the sector, including: Alessandro Bertoldi, Executive Director of the Milton Friedman Institute; Geronimo Cardia, President of ACADI (Confcommercio); Emmanuele Cangianelli, President of EGP (FIPE); Domenico Dtante, President of SAPAR; Armando Iaccarino, ASTRO (Confindustria); Moreno Marasco, President of Logico; Gennaro Parlati, President of ACMI; Ezio Stellato, Head of Fiscal Policies of the Friedman Institute.
“The legal gaming sector needs an immediate organic reform that affects all market segments, the current regulatory framework and the regulatory interventions that the Government is preparing to make create and will once again create disparities by encouraging the illegal market and influencing the free market heavily. We continue our strenuous battle in defense of business freedom, legality and against prohibitionism and State interference in the natural market dynamics", he said Alessandro Bertoldi, Executive Director of the Friedman Institute and moderator of the event.
“We support the integrated reorganization of all distribution channels and different gaming products, for a fully competitive public gaming offer against illegal competition. We require clear regulation of payment services to support online gaming, such as to allow multi-channel consumer choices in legal gaming without distorting the peculiarities of the retail or online concession titles. The integrated reorganization is also urgent to overcome the sterile measures proposed so far which claim to provide prevention with distance meters and time limitations only for some products, instead regulating specific training for operators and access controls to play areas at a national level, enabling player self-exclusion registers,” he said Emmanuel Cangianelli, President of EGP-FIPE.
“For over a decade the gaming market has suffered from fragmented and partial interventions – he said Geronimo Cardia, president of Acadi -. A political approach that has had negative impacts both on public interest objectives, such as legality and treasury, but also on businesses and workers in the sector, as well as on the primary interest of combating gambling disorder. Dealing with the "reorganization" of remote gaming before that of retail means reducing the overall revenue of the sector, the protection of legality in the territory, the protection of the player, the levels of employment and it also means suffocating small and medium-sized businesses", concluded Cardia.
“As Sapar we represent hundreds of small and medium-sized state public gaming enterprises. Companies in the public gaming sector employ around 150.000 workers and guarantee revenue of around 11 million euros (2022 data) as well as constituting an irreplaceable guarantee of legality. We believe that carrying forward the reorganization of the sector, under conditions that are not accessible to most operators, is harmful for the entire gaming supply chain. The truly indispensable points for us are also the recognition of the role of small and medium-sized management companies and the protection of collections in general stores", he stated Domenico Distant, SAPAR President.
“The first 20 years of the “public gaming system” defined the characteristics of the gaming supply chains; supply chains made up of a few hundred companies, around 70 in the online world, which employ more than 150.000 people. Furthermore, supply chains are increasingly transversal both with respect to the different games and the supply channels. It is this transversality that makes the public gaming model unique and requires a reorganization that simultaneously affects all sectors of the sector, with particular attention to all those small and medium-sized national companies that are at the basis of a nascent Italian gaming network. These companies are an asset for the sector which must be safeguarded in the face of improvident decisions on the conditions of access to the gaming market which would immediately undermine the current balance for the online offer and the prospect for the retail circuit", he explained Armando Iaccarino by ASTRO.
“The legal gaming sector expresses its disappointment at the missed opportunity for an overall and coordinated organic reorganization, with a questionable approach, in terms of method and substance. A drastic increase in the online concession cost to 7 million euros is unjustified, 35 times compared to the 200.000 euros in 2018. No more than 20 dealers are expected to participate in the online tender compared to the existing 91: competition decimated. In addition to not resolving the advertising and sponsorship issue, a singular "amnesty" of the Sales and Charging Points is looming, without a public tender and with a negligible annual cost, instead of a competitive procedure and a reasonable value", he underlined Moreno Marasco, President LOGiCO.
“ACMI believes it is of fundamental importance to enhance and develop the work done in recent years by small and medium-sized production, distribution and management companies, with over 45 thousand workers employed (CGA data), planning, all together, a stable and sustainable future guarantee of the consumer and the entire supply chain,” he said Gennaro Talk, President of ACMI.
