After the unanimous vote of the Council Commission, the Perugia City Council also arrives on the agenda presented by the PD Councilor Marko Hromis concerning verification and awareness-raising actions on pathological gambling.
“The act I presented - explained the Councilor - commits the Mayor and Council to verification, public awareness, control and prevention actions regarding the incalculable damage that gambling addiction causes, even in Perugia. Periodically and publicly report the data, start using tools made available to the administrations, actively promote the reorganization of the gambling sector at a national level, implement the use of the "No Slots" sticker and review the closing times of the premises from play. It is only part of what is required."
The Councilor announced that he will shortly present a new act to the First Commission to expand the typology of sensitive places. The Regulation adopted regarding public establishments was approved by the City Council five years ago and requires updating.
Below is the text of the approved agenda:
GIVEN THAT:
– According to data provided by the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM), legal gambling in Italy is significantly increasing and generated a turnover of 2021 billion euros in 111,17, an increase of 21% compared to 2020. A very high figure, equivalent to the amount of the gross domestic product of a medium/small country in the European Union; a figure that places the "gambling" sector in fourth place in terms of national turnover, behind Eni, Enel and Fca. Slot machines alone generate around a quarter of a billion euros a year. This increase is due to the increasingly widespread diffusion of accessible gaming systems and the growth of online betting. The latest data released by the Notice Public Association show an average annual Italian spending on gambling of 2.220 euros per capita. As of 31 December 2021, in Italy there were: 52.194 businesses with slot machines, 4.614 video lottery rooms, 53.798 instant lottery sales points, 34.299 lottery ticket offices Lotto, 9.329 betting shops. Data far superior to those of most of the main European countries which have legislation on the subject that is completely different from that of Italy.
– According to data from the National Observatory on Pathological Gambling (ONGPA) in Italy there are approximately 1,6 million people with gambling-related problems, of which 200.000 are pathological gamblers. Also in 2021, according to this data, 42% of young people between the ages of 14 and 19 have gambled and 9% of these have developed addiction with negative repercussions on the socio-emotional and relational sphere. Two other categories, already particularly fragile, are those of the elderly and poor people, particularly inclined to purchase scratch cards, sold in Italy at an average of 72 per second (of 40 different types). In the Province of Perugia the latest findings report approximately 18.000 people with gambling-related problems.
WHEREAS:
– With paragraph 569 of the 2019 Budget Law (n.145 of 30 December 2018), the Parliament established that “in order to make the rules of the local authorities governing the operating hours of the devices effective ”, starting from 1 July 2019, Municipalities and local authorities will be able to contact the Customs and Monopolies Agency to verify the effective application of the ordinances issued on the limitations of gaming hours relating to entertainment machines. The municipal administrations, through the application called SMART (Statistics and Monitoring of Territorial Collection), have been put in a position to: 1) monitor the operating hours of the video lottery machines installed in the municipal territory, with the possibility of drawing some data;
2) have data on gaming volumes in tabular format, at national, provincial, regional and municipal levels; 3) view on a map the distribution of the physical gaming offer differentiated by type and relative location of the businesses and devices.
– On March 23, 2023, Bill 1038 – “Delegation to the Government for tax reform” was presented. Discussed and approved by the Chamber on 12 July 2023, discussed and approved by the Senate on 4 August 2023 which provides, in art. 15, specifically for the topic in question, the delegation to the Government for the reorganization of the gaming sector, which includes many guidelines including: reduction of gaming and winning limits, obligation of continuous training of managers and merchants, strengthening of self-exclusion mechanisms from gaming, strengthening of the regulatory system on transparency and on the integrity requirements of the subjects who directly or indirectly control or participate in the capital of the concessionaire companies, new control powers for "remote gaming".
– It is the interest and responsibility of the public administration to protect the weakest subjects, in particular minors, to combat and avoid the spread of gambling-related pathologies and to keep faith with the principle of the "state reserve on the organization of games", on which it is based the Italian model. The rationale for the reservation in favor of the State of gaming activities is therefore based, even before the needs of the Treasury, in the relevant interests involved in gaming, such as the needs to combat crime and, more generally, the needs to protect the public order, the public faith of the players and the control of a phenomenon that is likely to involve large flows of money, sometimes of illicit origin.
CONSIDERING THAT:
– All the regions of Italy, also with the direct involvement of the Municipal Councils and the Executives of the respective capitals, have approved laws to prevent and combat gambling disorder, committing themselves to encouraging the disposal of slot machines and to reforming the municipal regulations that regulate the activity of legal games.
– The Umbria Region, in LR 21/2014 and subsequent amendments, approved similar measures and, in some cases, was a precursor, through work that should be resumed and implemented in constant synergy with local health companies, associations and public help desks listening and addressing.
– As proof of the concern and calls of the national health authorities for a strong commitment to combat gambling pathology, a measure was introduced in the Budget Law of recent years aimed at facilitating the IRAP reduction for operators by up to 50%. who dispose of slot machines present in their business.
ALSO TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT THAT:
– The Municipality of Perugia is a member of Notice Publico (Local authorities and regions against mafias and corruption), an association which for some time has been promoting the need for a law to reorganize the sector and closely follows any positive evolution within the municipal administrations of all Italy.
THE MAYOR AND THE COUNCIL COMMIT:
– To join the national campaign “Let's get involved” promoted by a series of entities, including the Public Notice itself, which among its objectives is to be able to publish and make available, without any constraints, all the data on the game on its website of legal gambling (physical and online) for each individual territory, so that this can commit to periodically providing a snapshot of the situation and allowing targeted control, information and prevention actions to be set up.
– Make the use of the SMART application effective and continuous (On 31 May 2019 the Customs and Monopolies Agency published a Determination on the technical methods of enabling and accessing the application. On 26 November 2019 a communicated with attached Operational Guide) and collect, in the first months of each year, municipal data on gambling from the previous year, making public everything that current legislation allows and simultaneously informing citizens, through the press and through channels institutional, on what the municipal administration has done in terms of containing the scourge of gambling pathology, as well as prevention and collaboration with third parties such as bodies, health companies, associations and foundations.
– To act as spokesperson and promoter, together with other Municipalities already involved, at ANCI at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, of the need to soon have the implementing decrees envisaged by the enabling law for the reorganization of the gambling sector, with the aim to put people's health at the center (even to the detriment of tax revenue); to evaluate the dangerous parameters of the different games, prohibiting those that are most likely to generate addiction; to overcome the current extraordinary concession management regime based on extensions and exemptions; to no longer use amendments or articles in emergency decrees or thousand extensions to legislate on gambling; to safeguard the more restrictive interventions of Local Authorities already foreseen or otherwise appropriate, based on specific territorial situations.
– Prepare and make available and accessible the list of businesses in the municipal area that have joined the slot machine disposal campaign and verify that they have displayed a visible sticker of the “Umbria No Slots” campaign.
– Verify the possibility of dedicating a space, within public libraries and schools, in which to display and make accessible literature for children and adolescents on the topic of risks related to gambling, simultaneously strengthening prevention and awareness-raising activities on the risks linked to gambling addiction, in collaboration with the Local Health Authority and with the associative fabric".
– Check whether, with respect to TAR Umbria ruling no. 343/2020 (which had rejected, due to lack of preliminary investigation, the time limits introduced in 2018) and following the subsequent TAR Umbria rulings no. 402/2021 and 413/2021 (which instead confirm the time limits imposed by the Mayor of Bastia Umbra) the conditions exist in Perugia for a new ordinance signed by the Mayor aimed at bringing forward the closing time from 01 to the latest commonly spread at 20pm.
