Will Italian online gambling regulator crack down on suppliers?

The Italian gaming legal expert Giulio Coraggio says on his blog this week that Italian regulator AAMS is seriously considering the introduction of licensing requirements for e-gaming suppliers as a weapon aimed at excluding illegal operators from the Italian market.

Coraggio says that the idea is to give the regulator more control over the activities of software and other providers in the market, pressuring them to eschew powering illegal operators.

Interacting with Italian regulators at the EiG conference this week, Coraggio was interested to hear confirmation that AAMS is considering the licensing of suppliers to the Italian online gambling market.

“Indeed, according to them, one of the reasons why the Italian black market is still large is because casino games suppliers offer the same types of games to both Italian licensed operators and dotcom operators targeting Italian players which due to the lighter tax regime are able to offer the same product with a better pay-out which therefore is more attractive for players despite of the potential criminal sanctions that both operators and players can face,” Coraggio writes.

“At the moment game suppliers are not regulated in Italy and they act as mere sub-contractors of operators without the need to hold any local license and without taking any direct obligation towards Italian authorities. However, if they will be required to hold a local license it is likely they will be expressly required to prevent any offering of games to Italian residents by their customers operating without an Italian remote gaming license,” he adds.

Coraggio expects the introduction of this measure as part of the laws implementing the so called “Delega Fiscale” – a law due in the Italian Senate soon that will empower the government to adopt within the next 12 months regulations that, among other objectives, should “harmonise and reorganise” the gaming sector.

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