President Cangianelli: "The approximately 4.700 specialized rooms and the almost 33.000 businesses that combine public games with catering and entertainment offerings must be protected due to the crucial role they play in the territories"
The current political debate on the reorganization of the legal gaming sector is an opportunity to take stock of the supply networks active in Italy, and in particular for specialized halls and non-specialised public businesses, other than tobacconists and general retailers. of monopoly, active with gaming offers: points of sale that mainly offer small-win entertainment machines, betting corners, bingo games and video lotteries within the gaming halls.
EGP and FIPE have more precisely identified the dimensions of these sales channels, based on cross-analysis in the various national databases of the Customs and Monopolies Agency and the Chamber of Commerce system, based on the points of sale authorized to collect the different concessions and on the ATECO codes .
There are a total of 2023 specialized public gaming rooms operating at the end of 4.668. These are bingo halls, betting shops and rooms dedicated to entertainment machines, in which there is also a catering offer and access to minors is prohibited. The greatest number of points is in Lombardia e Campania (respectively 669 e 666, in both cases just over 14% of the total), followed by Lazio and from Piemonte (respectively 438 e 425, in both cases just over 9% of the total).
Public establishments, other than lottery bookshops, which offer entertainment and bet collection machines only as secondary and accessory activities, are mainly bars and other catering establishments: the national total as of 2023 is 32.973. Even in this segment the concentration of these exercises is prevalent in Lombardia (5.525 points, almost 17% of the total) followed by Campania (3.336 points, approximately 10% of the total), from Lazio (2.783 points, 8,4% of the total) and from Veneto (2.738, 8,3% of the total).
"Public exercises attributable both to law 287 of 1991 and to subsequent regulations of licensed games - declares Emmanuel Cangianelli (in the photo), President EGP FIPE – they represent approximately 45% of the networks offering legal cash gaming by 2023 and around 50% of overall gaming spending in Italy. Due to the high tax levies on the games offered, more than half of the revenue from the games is guaranteed by public establishments".
“As the Confcommercio System we have been working for some time to encourage a concrete qualification of the gaming offer in public establishments: the social and legal responsibility of the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and their collaborators who take care of the collection of regulated games offered in the halls and bar is the basis for more effective rules on gaming access controls, which are also essential to prevent underage gaming. The extensive digitalisation of control solutions and gaming products available to operators in future concessions – concludes Cangianelli – it will be essential to maintain and improve gaming places in which to entertain, consciously and in complete safety, preventing addictions more effectively thanks to the direct communication with consumers that operators can ensure".
EGP (Italian Association of Public Games Operators) is the National Trade Association of FIPE, Italian Federation of Public Businesses of Confcommercio-Imprese for Italy, which protects the economic and professional interests of operators specialized in offering public games and in particular operating in Gaming Halls, the specialized rooms for offering Bingo and other regulated games with cash prizes. The Association is the employer counterpart, with the most representative national trade union organisations, of the National Labor Agreement for Gaming Hall employees, a special part of the CCNL of the Public Business sector, the most extensive labor agreement in the sector of Gaming. Among its main objectives: the fight against illegal gambling; the protection of "specialized" sales points (bingo halls, betting shops, gaming halls), in which over 30.000 employees work; the promotion and qualification, with FIPE, of the distribution networks of public games in non-specialised sales points (bars, restaurants, bathing establishments and other entertainment venues); the commitment to raise the standards of quality and professionalism in all public establishments, as safeguards of legality, promoting the culture of responsible gaming to prevent the development of pathological addictions and effectively combat illegal gaming.
