Text of the sentence of the Court of Cassation on the PDC
(Jamma) – The Judgment rendered by the Court of Cassation on May 31, 2013 is sensational, because it is liable to distort partially consolidated and suitable structures and jurisprudential lines of merit and provide a new interpretation key regarding the possibility of collecting game at CED and PDC .
Jamma provides the exclusive publication.
The facts that characterize the story can be summarized as follows:
The Police Forces carry out a seizure at a sales outlet contracted with a concessionaire authorized to collect online games and regularly registered with the AAMS.
Reason for seizure and criminal complaint: according to law 73/10, the PDC cannot collect gaming, but limit itself to top-ups and account openings in favor of customers and the licensee can only collect gaming at the authorized premises (in case matter located in Sansepolcro) and not at the various marketing outlets, even if contracted.
The defense, represented by the lawyer Marco Ripamonti with offices in Viterbo and Florence, argues in the review before the Court of Perugia, and in extreme synthesis, that AAMS has given rise to an inadmissible and inexplicable rethinking considering that from the circular dated 8.6.2006 and from the same contractual form disclosed on the institutional site www.AAMS.it a very different reality emerged, with the possibility of collecting gaming at the PDC, with the only limit represented by the prohibition of intermediation. On this point, extensive references by the defender to the directorial decrees of 21.3.2006 and 25.6.2007.
The Collegio di Perugia accepts the arguments of the defense and indeed adds that no person would ever have paid such a high price for a concession if they had been aware of being able to collect game at the only authorized site and not also at the PDCs.
The Public Prosecutor's Office challenges the order stating that it is only the headquarters authorized in the concession agreement to be able to collect gaming, with the exclusion of marketing points.
The proceeding was set for 18 July 2012 and the Court of Cassation, with a sentence of 31 May 2013, rejected the arguments of the Public Prosecutor's Office, accepting the arguments of the defender Marco Ripamonti, who was engaged that day before the Supreme Court also in the Cifone case.
The Supreme Court states that the Prosecutor made an erroneous overlap between the authorized office and the marketing point, observing how the PDC itself can be equipped with telematic gaming stations that allow the player in possession of a contract with the licensee to play to all intents and purposes , provided that this relationship takes place directly with the dealer himself and with the only limit represented by the prohibition of intermediation by the holder of the PDC. The same Court observes how the presence of said workstations useful for allowing gaming cannot in itself be considered an element relating to illicit intermediation in the absence of a license pursuant to the 88 tulps.
Prosecutor's appeal rejected.
Truly a four of aces, for the lawyer Marco Ripamonti, who has already resolved the Goldbet case with three sentences in the Supreme Court, and who thus commented on this sensational and yet another victory, which must be said, is also a victory of personal value : “The Court of Perugia, accepting my theses, had hit the mark by affirming the irrationality of the position of the State Monopolies, which following a mysterious second thought, had hypothesized the illegitimacy of the presence of telematic stations aimed at collecting game at marketing points. Certainly it will now be necessary to evaluate the impact of this important sentence with what is subsequently provided for by the so-called Balduzzi Decree with reference to the PDCs, it being understood that it emerges from the same sentence of the Court of Cassation that the presence of telematic stations is not in itself an index of collection of illegal gaming and that one thing is prohibited intermediation, another thing is the direct relationship between player and dealer, completely lawful according to the Supreme Court of Cassation. Undoubtedly, a compensation profile will also have to be evaluated among all those concessionaires who have been penalized by this erroneous orientation or better rethinking of Amms and the same administration, which I do not exclude will once again be called upon to compensate heavy damages caused to operators in the sector".
