The Mayor of Rho Andrea Orlandi signed yesterday, 9 January 2024, an ordinance that reduces the opening hours of gaming rooms, VTL rooms, betting shops and the use of slot machines in places that make them available. Gaming activities will be interrupted every day of the week from 7.30 to 9.30, from 12.00 to 14.00 and from 19.00 to 21.00. Anyone caught violating the union ordinance will receive a financial penalty of 500 euros.
The ordinance is posted on the noticeboard, will be published on the municipal website and is about to be notified to the premises directly affected in the city area by the local police who will carry out the checks, in agreement with the local law enforcement agencies.
In Rho, which has over 51 thousand residents, every year players lose on average over 19 million euros in physical gambling; in the Municipalities of the Rhodes area (170.645 inhabitants), in the years 2017-2019 players lost around 50 million euros to gambling every year, double what the Municipalities made available for social policies. In many situations it is the players themselves or their families who turn to the Municipalities for help.
The ordinance is part of the process started a year ago by the councilor for Legality Nicola Violante, which led to an information conference on the city situation, to a two-day event involving numerous associations, to the signing of a Community pact against gambling by around sixty local entities.
In the next few days, window decals designed to spread the number of the Asst Rhodense's Addiction Service as much as possible and allow those who want to ask for help to turn to trained and attentive people will appear in the city's shop windows.
The window sticker shows the SERD number 02-99430.4940. The logo is that of the cage in which the player who becomes a gambling addict risks locking himself in, a design already used in the month of May for the posters of the first information day. The slogan is “Gambling is not a game, it's an addiction. Look for the key! Stop gambling." Posters with the same image will be distributed in the offices of the associations, schools and parishes that have signed the Community Pact, to reach as many people as possible.
The ordinance was first shared with Confcommercio and then with the city police forces. The Municipality of Rho had already approved a Regulation for the opening and management of amusement arcades in July 2022, identifying the areas where their opening should be prohibited. Now Mayor Orlandi orders the interruption of the opening hours of all legal gaming activities with cash prizes in certain time slots.
“The action to combat the spread of gambling addiction is coordinated and widespread and features many positive energies from the area – underlines the councilor Nicola Violante –Our objective is now to involve the Mayors of the Rhodes area and discuss with the table started in the Region by the Legality Commission, because to fight this phenomenon we need to remain united. Rho, thanks to all the signatories of the Pact, is closing ranks: here we don't want to have to face terrible stories, we want to encourage the recovery of relationships at all ages and propose games that involve different generations. In the center as in all the neighborhoods."
“Gambling addiction compromises people's health and well-being and undermines the safety of families: those who gamble take away space for commitments and relationships, squandering their resources – concludes the Mayor Andrea Orlandi –This also favors the infiltration of organized crime. As local administrators we don't have big weapons, but we use those that are granted to us. Hence this ordinance, which was created for preventive purposes to counteract the harmful consequences of pathological gambling, even in the younger generations".
Read the full ordinance
