(Jamma) The enabling law approved by the Chamber, concerning the reorganization of taxation and the public gaming sector (transmitted to the Senate for the second phase of the legislative process), has received much appreciation from the so-called "no slot" circles. Not wanting to go into the merits of the authentic interpretation of the "principles" expressed by the framework law (which gives the Government the power-duty to issue legislative decrees implementing the general provisions outlined by Parliament), we will limit ourselves to analyzing their "systemic" scope.
First of all, the enabling law approved by the Chamber constitutes a substantial "denial" (or supersession) of the guidelines approved by the Senate on 5 September 2013 (the so-called moratorium on gaming), which today can be defined as technically no longer current. Even if the Parliamentary Chamber does not coincide, in fact, when the Government receives an act of direction of a certain tenor, and, subsequently, a legislative delegation of a different sign, the second "de facto cancels the first" given that "constitutionally" the majority of the two Chambers is "politically" the same (although obviously different numerically).
The first point that is assessed, therefore, is the burial of the moratorium on lawful gaming. In the detail of the provisions, then, three fundamental principles are appreciated which - at a first reading - appear very clear:
a) it is up to the implementing provision of the Government (and no other) to regulate how lawful gaming should be governed, both existing and future, and that which will gradually have to be created to "accompany" the introduction of the new provisions;
b) it is up to the Government's implementing provision (and no other) to establish which place can be defined as "sensitive", which form of "distance" makes it "protected" by the gaming offer, which rationalizations are necessary (and with which temporal progression ) to make the current distribution network of prize gaming machines (all and without distinction) conform to the model that will be created in the future;
c) the Municipality will have tasks dictated by the State law from a formal and substantial point of view and no Local Authority will be able to legislate or "regulate" in conflict with it, with the express salvation of the current "local" rules, only insofar as they are compatible with the future legislative decree of the Government.
Added to this is that the mission of legal gaming is "correctly" redefined in terms of an instrument to combat illegal and irregular gaming, to be calibrated to "reconcile" tax interests "with" local ones and with general ones in the field of public health ”.
It is therefore evident that "formal clarity" will be made on the circumstance relating to pathological gambling, its specific association with the individual products of legal gambling and the relative distribution on the territory: it will no longer be possible, ultimately, to report the GAP epidemic without the documentary evidence that is normally used for legislative processes, and to fear the contrast to it only in terms of "free slot" bars.
Surely there will be limitations, rationalizations, containment planning, but all this will have to be a "reconciliation" of interests with respect to the "expectation" of tax revenue.
Basically, it will not be the Municipality or the Region that will be able to establish how much "state revenue" can be sacrificed on the altar of the local interest, but the State will decide how much sacrifice to bear in order to "reconcile" the needs of the territories with the same from Bolzano (included) to Mazzara del Vallo (included).
To state that the laws of Bolzano and Liguria have numbered hours is "political fiction", in a country where there is no certainty about the life and capacity of the government to act. However, the principle has now made its way and if it were to be approved also by the Senate it would become an "indissoluble bond" (under penalty of unconstitutionality) for the Government, which is being given the indication to re-establish every regulation on gaming under the State Law lawful.
There are many territorial bodies (with ordinary and special statute) who have decided to intervene on the matter by "replacing" the State: for them, the enabling law provides a stark alternative: either we align ourselves with the legislation that the State will dictate, or rules will be considered repealed.
Is this enough for "the legitimate gaming industry" to applaud the law? certainly yes, given that the only request formulated by companies has always and only consisted in invoking a clear "regulation" valid for the whole national territory, which would allow the "State" product to be offered everywhere in the same way (any it was).
