(Jamma) This morning, the Quaestor Secretary of the Regional Council, Giovanni Nucera, presented the bill containing "Provisions for conscious and responsible access to lawful gambling and the prevention and treatment of pathological gambling". "It's a law with fairly clear contents - says Nucera - the Regions can deliberate on the matter only for three particular aspects". “The first – he adds – concerns the distances to be defined with respect to so-called sensitive places, schools, hospitals, universities, areas, in short, where people gather. The second point refers to the possibility of blocking any type of advertising that tends to exalt, advertise the action of gaming halls or places in general where slot machines are located. The last aspect that still involves the Regions concerns the definition of uniform conditions and criteria by the Municipalities for the release of planning authorizations, with reference to the urban context”.
”A law – Nucera explained in the meeting moderated by the journalist of the Press Office of Palazzo Campanella Filippo Diano – which arises from a sentence of the Constitutional Court, the n. 300 of 9 November 2011, which ruled in the judgment of constitutional legitimacy on some articles of the law of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. With that pronouncement - Nucera explained - all the Regions were invited to promote information actions on the risks and consequences of gambling, dictating some fixed points which represent the central part with which all Regions must comply. The law I presented provides for the establishment of an Observatory, an idea that the Tuscany Region is also ready to include in its bill, which will, among other things, have the task of monitoring the regional territory to identify those situations of risk that it is necessary to remove promptly, but also to train the managers of the gaming premises, to better prepare them to face and manage situations of pathological risk. In other countries, the managers are obliged by law to intervene on the player when he shows behaviors that go beyond the normal". ”The damage caused by gambling, when it becomes pathological – continued Nucera – can be even worse than taking drugs. In Italy we are not yet prepared to deal adequately with this matter. If you don't create an awareness campaign to make people understand that it's one thing to play the legitimate game, it's another thing to rely on the big lobbies, even delinquent lobbies that manage captivating game rooms in a fraudulent and deceptive way. This is why it is necessary - he concluded - to raise awareness, protect and help Calabrian families. For a new culture of disengagement towards gambling houses to spread, a new culture of distancing from a serious social danger which concerns, as many news stories demonstrate, above all minors".
