This morning, the associations of purely entertainment automatic gaming, signed by the four organizations ANBI, ANESV, New Asgi and SINSV CISL, sent a note to the Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Economy and Finance with responsibility for gaming, Sandra Savino, who these days he is dealing with the sector. Below is the text:
Games of pure entertainment, without cash prizes - Proposals from the management associations
The proponents
ANBI is the majority trade organization of bowling alleys and family entertainment centers.
ANESV, a member of AGIS and Federturismo Confindustria, is the oldest and most representative category organization of traveling entertainment and amusement parks
NEW ASGI is a trade organization that represents the managers of rooms and centers that manage devices without cash prizes.
SNISV FELSA CISL is a trade organization that represents hundreds of rooms with games without cash prizes.
The problem
The Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM), in application of art. 38 of law 388/2000 elaborated the technical and administrative rules for gaming with cash prizes and for pure entertainment games, without cash prizes, introducing an approval procedure which, with some differences, assimilates the devices referred to in paragraph 6 of the art. 110 TULPS, with cash prizes, and other automatic games for families. A process has been determined that assigns third-party bodies to verify compliance with the new technical rules introduced in 2021, both for newly produced games and for each single device in operation, attributing to the managers, with secondary standardization, an obligation that the cited law assigns only to "manufacturers and importers" and limited to the homologation of only one prototype per appliance.
Starting from 1 January 2022, only appliances that have obtained an authorization from the ADM can be installed, while those in operation, which have obtained a provisional authorization must undergo a technical verification of conformity no later than on December 31, 2023.
Each of the tens of thousands of automatic machines with no cash prizes, pure entertainment or with soft toy prizes or objects of modest value must undergo an approval that costs much more than the intrinsic value of the machines themselves, and requires compliance with the rules techniques issued after its placing on the market.
The verification bodies recognized by ADM, whose number can be counted on the fingers of one hand, for some months now have not accepted to subject devices already in operation to verification but only those of new production, complying to the letter with the provisions of article 38 which, on the other hand, ADM did not apply correctly, extending to the managers with a directorial provision obligations not envisaged by a law. Article 38 of Law 388/2000 provided for the homologation of only prototypes of new games by "importers and manufacturers", however the application provision, issued a full twenty years later, improperly extends these obligations also to managers and provides the homologation of a prototype for an appliance, to be extended by analogy to all the specimens produced subsequently, as occurs for cars, but the homologation of each single appliance in operation, shifting the obligation to the responsibility of the operators.
Manager requests
- Self-certification instead of homologation: it is necessary to avoid the danger of having to scrap thousands of appliances without cash prizes, including those produced before 2003, whose manufacturing companies have often closed and are unable to supply the technical documents required for the approval of each single appliance referred to in paragraph 7 of art. 110 TULPS. Such pure entertainment games do not cause any social alarm but constitute intergenerational fun for families.
Therefore, it is more necessary than ever to eliminate the obligation of approval of individual appliances - introduced not by a law, but by a directorial decree which can be modified without difficulty - by providing, if necessary, for the presentation of a self-certification by the operator relating to the technical elements of the appliance and the operating modes, for the purposes of their census by ADM. It is not possible for ADM to claim, 20 years after the enactment of the aforementioned law, to want to check appliances that have been in operation for years, without a premium or that at most dispense soft toys and gadgets of modest value.
- Games with “reels”: as known, the directorial decision ADM prot. 151294/RU Rome, 18 May 2021, imposes the prohibition of approval of devices equipped with rollers, understood as a "device with rollers: the set, contained in the device and visible from the outside of the same, of physical rollers which depict different symbols in a prearranged sequence, controlled by stepping motors or by motors capable of dividing their rotation into several steps, as well as photo-optics capable of detecting their stop position;". The ban has existed for decades, linked to historical reasons, because in the 90s machines that simulated slot machines appeared.
Currently there are devices of pure skill, produced by the great American or Asian brands and widespread throughout the world, with levers or buttons that allow you to operate wheels or rollers that stop thanks to the friction and the force used by the user, without any software determines the stopping point in advance and affects the outcome of the game. There are, for example, devices operating all over the world which consist of a horizontal disk with some holes, which rotates slowly, while the user's ability is to release a ball from above by simply trying to make it enter the aforementioned holes, releasing it at the opportune moment. It is a game in which there is no mechanism that conditions the movement of the ball and whether or not it hits the hole or bounces on the turntable. These games have not passed the preparatory checks for approval because the certification bodies refer to the prohibition set forth in the aforementioned directorial determination.
Prohibiting the marketing and exercise of these games of skill just because the plan is circular in shape is incomprehensible and has no effect on the prevention of gambling, given that it is pure skill. Therefore it is required that the aforementioned directorial determination, in article 3, paragraph 1) lett. g), which provides "they are in any case without a roller device or virtual rollers" the sentence should be added "if there is software that determines their arrest through an algorithm, which must instead be caused exclusively by the skill of the player".
- Suppression of the Tax on Entertainment for the devices referred to in paragraph 7 of the art. 110 TULPS: The ISI on devices without cash prizes constitutes a truly negligible revenue, equal to 11 million euros, for the state coffers, but nevertheless imposes a series of burdensome obligations on the operators, connected to the hyper-regulation envisaged by the Agency of Customs and Monopolies, forced to supervise tens and tens of thousands of table football and token or coin-operated horses, inevitably weakening the control activity on other forms of legal gaming that require greater attention.
Paying a surcharge to offer citizens recreational sports such as billiards, bowling or to allow children to win a soft toy or other prizes of modest value - by law not exceeding 20 euros - constitutes a fulfillment that does not involve any advantage for the 'Inland Revenue but imposes a series of regulatory obligations - the registration of each device and its possible movements in an ADM database - and consequently a surveillance and collection activity that is enormously more expensive for the public budget than the revenue, very modest, of the tax collected.
The ISI regulations present aspects worthy of suppression, if one considers that the tax, paid on a flat-rate basis, is also due in relation to entertainment devices used free of charge in oratories and schools, for example for table football and ping pong tables .
Therefore, it is requested that point 2 of the table of Tariffs of the entertainment tax referred to in Attachment A to Legislative Decree no. 26.
