“Vigilance continued on the prohibition of any form of advertising of gambling or in any case of games and bets with cash winnings. The fight against this phenomenon has taken the form of supervisory activities and sanctions, some of which are significant, also thanks to the effective and active support of the Guardia della Finanza”. This is what the president of AGCOM Giacomo Lasorella declared in the occasion of the presentation of the annual report of the activity.
“In particular, also on the basis of reports received from the Customs and Monopolies Agency and the Guardia di Finanza, proceedings have been initiated against amusement arcades, betting offices and advertising concessionary companies.
In particular, six provisions have been adopted against businesses that own machines that allow cash prizes that work with coins or tokens (video-lottery or slot machines, so-called VLT/Slot halls), as clients, and as concessionaires and advertising agencies that have carried out advertising and promotional activities in violation of the prohibition. Half of the proceedings ended with dismissal orders due to oblation, the other half with injunction orders.
With reference to digital platforms, with resolutions nos. 275/22/CONS and 288/22/CONS, the companies Google Ireland Limited (for content broadcast on YouTube, 1 thousand euros) and Top Ads Ltd (450 thousand euros) were fined a total of 750 million and 700 thousand euros euro), for the violation of the aforementioned art. 9, paragraph 1, of the Dignity decree. This is the first provision adopted by the Authority against a video sharing service provider, for the dissemination of prohibited advertising relating to games with cash prizes. In fact, the legislation identifies a plurality of subjects as responsible for the unlawful conduct and recipient of the relative sanctions ("client, owner of the means or site of diffusion or destination and organizer of the demonstration, event or activity"). The preliminary evidence ascertained the violation of the rule both by the subject/creator (i.e. the company Top Ads Ltd, through its website and its Spike channels on YouTube), and by the video sharing platform (You Tube, company controlled by Google).
With specific reference to the fine imposed on Google, it should be noted that the company was held responsible for not having taken any initiative to remove the illicit content massively disseminated on its YouTube platform by a third party (Spike), with which had a specific partnership contract in place that gave it the status of verified partner.
In addition to the administrative fine, the Authority ordered the removal (so-called notice and take down) of 625 illegal contents still present on the YouTube platform, as well as on the spikeslot.com website; moreover, for the first time, the Authority has inhibited the dissemination and uploading of videos with similar illegal content (so-called notice and stay down), in line with the most recent rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Again in implementation of the same prohibition, a social media platform was also sanctioned. With resolution no. 422/22/CONS an injunction order was in fact adopted
against the company Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Meta) by imposing a fine of 750 thousand euros. Meta was held responsible, in particular, for not having foreseen in its general contract conditions, intended for the Italian market and relating to the promotion of paid goods and services, any restriction in relation to the advertising of games with cash prizes. Specifically, it emerged that the company allows all its business customers who intend to address the Italian public to promote such content, including through the targeting of advertisements.
In addition to the pecuniary administrative sanction, also in this case, the Authority has imposed on Meta to prevent the authors of the sponsorships covered by the provision from disseminating and uploading similar infringing contents.
In consideration of the high number of reports concerning the alleged violation of the ban on advertising gaming with cash prizes, received following the adoption of the aforementioned injunction orders, a special group was set up in September 2022 of work for carrying out the consequent verification activities.
As a result of the pre-investigation investigations carried out in the period October 2022-March 2023, content that did not comply with the legislation in question was found on the main online video and social sharing platforms. In the cases in which the investigations gave a positive outcome, sanctioning proceedings were initiated. Furthermore, the pre-investigation activity carried out made it possible to identify over 50 subjects (so-called creators) responsible for the creation and production of the aforementioned infringing contents, disseminated online through dedicated channels on social platforms or on proprietary websites. In order to identify and acquire all the elements necessary for initiating the proceedings, in consideration of the difficulty linked to finding the subjects, often operating from abroad, the Authority made use of the support of the specialized structures of the Postal Police and of the Special Nucleus of the Finance Guard.
