Lumia (Pd): "Raise licensee accreditation standards and taxes on gaming activities"
(Jamma) It was presented this morning by some senators of the PD, first signatory Lumia (in the picture), a motion committing the government on 16 points. The senators ask to raise the accreditation standards of the concessionaires and the system of controls on their corporate identity, on the origin of their assets and on their financial flows; to introduce, as regards the traceability of money, the dedicated account and the register of bets and betting competitions; introduce a ban on participation in tenders and procedures for the issue of gaming licenses by natural and legal persons convicted of serious crimes, also extending this ban to relatives and in-laws within the third degree; to establish for trust companies, investment funds and trusts the obligation to declare the identity of the principal, as well as to guarantee that failure to comply with this obligation will result in the prohibition of participation in public procedures for obtaining concessions; to equate foreign companies that operate in Italy without a license to legal operators; to set up specialized investigative departments and structures in all the Public Prosecutor's Offices for the repression of criminal activities related to the gaming market; to increase the penalties for all crimes relating to the gaming market; to ban advertising of games in the media and news media; to raise the VAT on online games from 0,6 per cent to 21 per cent; to provide for the adoption as soon as possible of the decree of the President of the Council of Ministers on the updating of the essential levels of assistance; to set up a "Fund for the prevention and treatment of pathological gambling", to be fed through the application of an additional tax on the income earned by the concessionaires and the players' winnings; to give greater powers of intervention to the mayors; to establish, in the field of online games, mechanisms capable of verifying the age of majority of the player for access to the game; to carry out adequate awareness campaigns against the GAP; to finance information and awareness programs on the responsible use of money and on the risks associated with gambling; finally to promote among the competent institutions of the European Union, through any suitable initiative, the introduction of a common regulation relating to the gaming market, in order to harmonize the regulations of the member countries. Below is the complete text of the motion that will be discussed this morning - The Senate, considering that: in recent years the gaming market in our country has grown exponentially. There is no corner of our cities where game points have not sprung up at a worrying speed and frequency, and the web is populated by thousands of sites that offer the possibility of playing from the comfort of home; the growing interest in the gaming sector is evidenced by the advertising investments supported by the concessionaires, which, as stated in the report produced by "Public Notice (Local Authorities and Regions for civil training against the mafia)", only in the first 6 months of 2012 they spent more than 70 million euros; the universe of the gaming market offers an ever more varied and sophisticated type of attractions: from traditional slot machines, to bets, to online games, just to name a few; the phenomenon has assumed a very worrying importance on an economic, social and criminal level, both for the enormous volume of business, and for the addictions that gambling involves on hundreds of thousands of citizens, and for the infiltration of the mafias in this sector ; the turnover of the gaming market in Italy in 2012 was around 90 billion euros, a figure equal to 4 percent of the national GDP. If one wanted to make a ranking of Italian companies based on turnover, the hypothetical “Gioco d'colta SpA” would be the third company after Eni and Enel. Furthermore, Italy holds the absolute primacy in the instant lotteries sector, with the – 51 – largest market in the world. The "Scratch cards" have now fully entered the daily consumption of millions of Italians, so much so as to push Istat to introduce them into the consumption basket with which inflation is calculated; the fallout that the State has in terms of tax revenues is minimal. Suffice it to say that out of a turnover of 80 billion euros, in 2011 the exchequer collected only 9 billion euros. All this thanks to a questionable tax relief. The VAT on the latest generation of games, such as online games, is 0,6 percent: a percentage that needs to be reviewed with extreme urgency, if one considers that on basic necessities, such as bread and pasta, the VAT applied is 4 per cent; if we analyze the more purely social effects of the gaming market, we realize the extreme danger of the phenomenon. Estimates say that in our country there is a pool of players of 30 million people, of which 2 million at risk of addiction and 800.000 pathological players, a figure double that of drug addicts in Italy. Another alarming figure concerns the number of minors, around 500.000, who are used to gambling; many gamblers fall into the spiral of "pathological gambling" (GAP), a pathology that involves subjects belonging to all social categories, from the wealthiest to the poorest, from the most educated to those with a low level of education . It is a serious form of addiction, like addictions to substances, which arouses in the subject the imperative need to play to the point of causing states of withdrawal from gambling, with heavy repercussions both on his life and on that of his family; therefore the Services for addictions must be put in the conditions, through the allocation of suitable resources, to take care of pathological gamblers and their families, from both a health and psycho-social point of view, with the same methodologies and tools which they use to take charge of alcohol/drug addicts (including certification of addiction, possible residential assistance and the possibility for prisoners addicted to pathological gambling to access alternative measures to prison); the extreme ease of access to gambling and the enormous presence of advertising on the media and communication, often with misleading formulas, help to increase the risk. Slogans like “Do you like to win easy?” or “Next Millionaire” are clearly deceptive. The causes that lead many players to become pathological gamblers are many and are often associated with other economic and social factors, as well as with other forms of addiction; also considering that: already in 1980 the World Health Organization recognized the GAP as a form of dependence and invited our country to include it in the essential levels of assistance (Lea). Only 30 years later the Italian legislator introduced gambling addiction in the Lea with the decree-law n. 158 of 2012, converted, with amendments, by law no. 189 of 2012, the so-called Balduzzi decree. However, this provision has remained a dead letter due to the lack of resources allocated to set up a social and health care system dedicated to the problem; article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Balduzzi decree, containing "Urgent provisions to promote the development of the country through a higher level of health protection", establishes that with a decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, to be adopted by 31 December 2012, on the proposal of the Minister of Health, in agreement with the Minister of Economy and Finance, in agreement with the Permanent Conference for relations between the State, the Regions and the autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano and with the opinion of the competent parliamentary commissions, the Lea should be updated with reference to the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation services aimed at people affected by gambling addiction, "understood as a pathology that characterizes subjects affected by gambling syndrome with cash winnings, as well as defined by the World Health Organization (GAP)”; article 7, paragraph 8, relating to the prohibition of entry to minors "in the areas intended for gaming with cash prizes inside the bingo halls, as well as in the areas or in the halls in which video terminals are installed" and "in the points of sale where bets on sporting events are carried out as its main activity", provides that the Ministry of the Economy, within 6 months from the date of entry into force of the law converting the decree, issues a "decree for the progressive compulsory introduction of suitable technical solutions aimed at automatically blocking minors' access to games, as well as aimed at automatically warning the player of the dangers of gambling addiction”; to date, neither the decree of the President of the Council of Ministers on the updating of the Lea with reference to prevention, treatment and rehabilitation services aimed at people affected by gambling addiction, nor the decree of the Ministry of the Economy have been adopted; noted that: despite the State's commitment to regulating the gaming sector, the illegal market managed by organized crime has continued to survive and grow. It is estimated, in fact, that the latter has achieved a turnover of around 10 billion euros. Furthermore, the exponential growth of the gaming market has opened up new frontiers for the business of organized crime, which immediately sensed its enormous economic potential. In particular for the mafias, the gaming market represents a very tempting opportunity for conspicuous revenues, to control the territory and to launder dirty money; moreover, the lack of a common European regulation allows criminal organizations and business groups operating in the gaming sector from other countries to enter the Italian market and circumvent, with the aid of new technologies, the standards and controls envisaged by our regulations. From this point of view, each country is very vulnerable as long as it thinks of tackling the problem autonomously and independently; the numerous investigations carried out in recent years by the judiciary and by the forces of order throughout Italy have revealed a rich criminal presence in the gaming sector by all the Italian mafia organizations (Cosa nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita) and of the foreign ones, just think of the most famous investigations that concerned the betting sector in the world of football. According to the report produced by "Libera", there are about 50 clans with direct and indirect interests; among the most dangerous we remember the Casalesi, the Santapaola, the Condello and the Lo Piccolo; the negative repercussions on the national economic and productive system are worrying because gambling takes away an enormous quantity of resources from the market and from the healthy and productive economy which, on the other hand, could grow and create new wealth and employment with those resources; finally noted that: the State has delegated to the Regions the task of meeting the health expenditure for gambling addictions, but the Regions and local bodies in the absence of resources are not in a position to finance these services. Furthermore, the only interventions by the State on the prevention front are the awareness campaigns, in the opinion of questionable proponents, by the Customs and Monopolies Agency; in order to guarantee part of the coverage for the measures for the abolition of the Imu, the art. 14 of the decree-law of 31 August 2013, n. 102, containing "Urgent provisions on the subject of IMU, other real estate taxation, support for housing policies and local finance, as well as redundancy fund and pension treatments", establishes, among other things, that, in order to close the dispute opened with public gaming concessionaires for non-payment of the amount due to the treasury, also guaranteeing a certain income and in a short time, the open proceedings can be defined through the payment of reduced penalties; considering that this measure can lead to a weakening of the deterrent effects of the sanctions, it should be considered exceptional and in any case makes it necessary to verify the possibility of alternative coverage to the decree-law of 31 August 2013, n. 102; sono stati presentati al Senato, da parte di membri del Gruppo PD, vari disegni di legge in materia di regolamentazione del gioco, di contrasto al gioco d’azzardo e per la prevenzione e la cura del gioco d’azzardo patologico; è necessario dunque procedere con estrema sollecitudine all’esame di tali testi, accelerandone l’iter al fine di giungere alla loro approvazione in tempi ristretti, impegna il Governo: 1) ad elevare gli standard di accreditamento dei concessionari ed il sistema dei controlli sulla loro identità societaria, sull’origine dei loro patrimoni e sui loro flussi finanziari attraverso un sistema di tracciamento dei movimenti finanziari in entrata ed in uscita, al fine di evitare la presenza di infiltrazioni mafiose e di riciclaggio di denaro sporco; 2) ad introdurre, per quanto riguarda la tracciabilità del denaro, il conto dedicato ed il registro delle scommesse e dei concorsi pronostici dove annotare gli importi della raccolta delle giocate delle vincite e della relativa differenza, nonché l’abbassamento delle soglie per le segnalazioni previste dalla normativa sull’antiriciclaggio; 3) ad introdurre il divieto di partecipare a gare e procedure per il rilascio di concessioni in materia di giochi da parte delle persone fisiche e giuridiche condannate per reati gravi anche in via non definitiva, estendendo inoltre tale preclusione anche a parenti ed affini entro il terzo grado; 4) a stabilire per società fiduciarie, fondi di investimento e trust che detengono partecipazioni al capitale o al patrimonio di società concessionarie di giochi pubblici l’obbligo di dichiarare l’identità del soggetto mandante, nonché a garantire che l’inosservanza di tale obbligo comporti il divieto di partecipazione a procedure di evidenza pubblica per l’ottenimento delle concessioni; 5) ad equiparare agli operatori legali le compagnie estere che esercitano in Italia senza licenza, assoggettando al controllo e agli obblighi statuali tutti i soggetti del mercato, comprendendo anche le società estere con capitale azionario anonimo e i gestori esteri che operano sul territorio italiano; 6) ad istituire presso tutte le Procure della Repubblica strutture e reparti investigativi specializzati per la repressione delle attività criminali connesse al mercato dei giochi; 7) ad inasprire le pene per tutti i reati relativi al mercato dei giochi; 8) a vietare la pubblicità dei giochi d’azzardo e dei giochi di fortuna sui mezzi di comunicazione e sui mezzi di informazione, nonché a prevedere l’obbligo, da parte dei concessionari, di inserire nei loro prodotti e servizi, come è stato fatto per il fumo, messaggi di avvertimento sui rischi da dipendenza che può generare il gioco; 9) ad innalzare l’Iva sui giochi on line dallo 0,6 per cento al 21 per cento, alla stregua di qualsiasi prodotto commerciale che non sia di prima necessità, destinando prioritariamente le risorse derivanti da tale innalzamento alle misure per la prevenzione e la cura del gioco d’azzardo patologico ed eventualmente garantire con quota delle medesime risorse parte della copertura del provvedimento relativo alla soppressione dell’Imu; 10) a provvedere al più presto all’adozione del decreto del Presidente del Consiglio dei ministri sull’aggiornamento dei livelli essenziali di assistenza con riferimento alle prestazioni di prevenzione, cura e riabilitazione rivolte alle persone affette da gioco d’azzardo patologico garantendo loro le medesime prestazioni previste per gli alcol/tossicodipendenti (compresa la certificazione di dipendenza, l’eventuale assistenza residenziale e l’accesso alle misure alternative per i detenuti dipendenti da gioco d’azzardo patologico), e del decreto del Ministero dell’economia per la progressiva introduzione obbligatoria di idonee soluzioni tecniche volte a bloccare automaticamente l’accesso dei minori ai giochi con vincite di denaro, nonché volte ad avvertire automaticamente il giocatore dei pericoli di dipendenza dal gioco, già previsti dal decreto-legge n.
