Italy’s €11.5BN Gambling Boom Hides a Bigger Crackdown

Key Points

• Italy’s regulated gambling industry generated €11.5 billion in 2025, led by gaming machines, lotteries, and betting.
• Enforcement increased, with 22,931 inspections and 1,038 illegal gambling websites blocked in 2025.
• Italy reformed gambling laws under Legislative Decree No. 41 of 2024, covering regulation, financial monitoring, responsible gambling, and match-fixing.

For years, one figure shaped the conversation around Italy’s gambling industry, tax revenue. That number still carries weight, yet another story has started unfolding behind it. While the sector delivered €11.5 billion to public finances during 2025, regulators also launched one of the country’s toughest campaigns against illegal gambling operations. More than 1,000 unauthorised websites disappeared behind blocking orders, monitoring systems expanded, and fresh reforms started changing how gambling works across shops and digital platforms. A different reality is now taking shape inside the industry. Gambling in Italy no longer operates only as a source of tax income; it is turning into a tightly monitored environment where enforcement, compliance, consumer protection, technology, and market supervision now move together.

Italy’s Gambling Market Produced Billions as Regulators Tightened Control

ADM, the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency, reported that regulated gambling brought in revenue of €11.5 billion in 2025. The statistical report published by the agency stated the figure was €11.47 billion, reflecting a slight decrease of 0.74% compared to the previous year.

While the picture seemed stable from the outside, operators were experiencing increased regulatory scrutiny, more compliance issues, and enforcement measures against illegal gambling. Nevertheless, the regulated market was still contributing significant revenue to the government despite all the challenges.

That performance carried wider importance because gambling remains closely tied to Italy’s public revenue system. Across 2025, ADM collected more than €82 billion in total revenue, almost €2 billion above the previous year.

The figures also revealed how strongly gambling now sits inside the country’s tax structure:

• €21.7 billion came from customs operations, mainly through VAT on imports.
• €33.7 billion arrived from excise duties linked to energy products and alcohol.
• Tobacco generated €15.6 billion, the highest amount recorded in five years.
• Public gaming contributed €11.5 billion.

Inside the gambling sector, gaming machines still controlled the largest share of revenue at 54.81%. Lotteries and number games followed with 28.40%, while betting contributed 7.13%. Other gambling categories accounted for the remaining 9.66%.

Those numbers also explain why regulators now focus more on control and modernisation instead of simple market growth. The state already depends heavily on gambling revenue. Attention has started moving towards transaction flows, financial monitoring, and whether gambling activity stays inside regulated systems.

Italy Expanded Its Fight Against Illegal Gambling Operations

Revenue was not the only issue discussed during the ADM General Assembly in Rome. Enforcement activity also climbed sharply throughout the year. Authorities inspected almost 23,000 gambling locations during 2025, including 22,931 gaming establishments listed in ADM’s statistical report. Inspection levels increased slightly from 2024, although the strongest action appeared in the digital market.

During this period, ADM took action against 1,038 websites related to unauthorised gambling, which was a growth of 44% from the previous period. This growth was in line with a trend developing in illegal gambling markets as a whole. With most activities moving online, it becomes difficult for authorities to control this kind of gambling through methods traditionally used for regulating retail gambling.

Authorities are no longer concerned only about the illegal act itself but also associated factors like links with organised crime, money laundering, inadequate consumer protection, and availability to minors. Director Roberto Alesse said supervisory systems are becoming more selective and technology-driven. The goal, he explained, is to improve enforcement results without creating unnecessary disruption for compliant operators.

That distinction matters for licensed businesses. Broad enforcement pressure can create operational difficulties when monitoring systems become too intrusive. ADM’s current strategy points towards a more targeted model built around risk assessment rather than pressure across the whole industry.

Responsible Gambling Measures Are Moving into Daily Operations

Italy’s regulatory direction is also changing how responsible gambling measures work across the industry. What once existed mainly as a public awareness effort is now becoming part of operational systems inside both retail and digital gambling environments.

In the process of these events, great emphasis was put on safeguarding children and avoiding any form of gambling addiction. The current method employed in fighting gambling entails collaboration among the enforcement bodies along with the application of sophisticated analysis software to detect abnormal gambling behaviour at an early stage.

This indicates an emerging trend taking place globally. Traditional responsible gambling models often depended on warning campaigns or voluntary tools. Italy is now moving deeper into transaction monitoring, behavioural analysis, and integrated compliance supervision.

Pressure is also rising beyond ADM itself.

In Italy, the recently amended communications guidelines on responsible gaming by the Authority for Communications Guarantees (AGCOM) have started a period of public consultation. In accordance with the new requirements, responsible gaming programs should be readily recognisable as prevention communications, but promoting gambling is prohibited.

For operators, the impact now extends far beyond advertising language. Strategies for customer acquisition, promotion, retention, and even general communication practices are evolving in light of increasing demands on regulation. Firms that were reliant on extensive promotion in the past may now find themselves increasingly struggling to adapt in a regulatory context that is getting tougher in Italy.

Italy’s Gambling Reforms Have Entered a Wider Structural Phase

The gambling sector in Italy is no longer facing policy amendments that are done in isolation but a comprehensive overhaul process has begun since the introduction of Legislative Decree No. 41 of 2024.

There have been quick developments that aim to make the gambling regime more efficient and regulate the industry effectively.

Several priorities are now advancing at the same time:

• Stronger transaction traceability
• Wider cooperation between agencies
• Tighter fraud prevention measures
• Upgraded digital monitoring systems
• National standardisation of land-based gambling rules

One of the most important developments involves the planned reorganisation of the land-based sector. Authorities continue reviewing proposals connected to distances from sensitive locations, operating hours, and nationwide regulatory harmonisation.

Those discussions directly affect retail gambling operators because regional inconsistencies have divided Italy’s land-based gambling market for years. The government has also included gambling oversight within its wider fiscal planning strategy. The Guidance Act on Fiscal Policy and Tax Administration for 2026–2028 contains measures designed to strengthen anti-fraud enforcement across gambling operations.

At the same time, ADM committed itself to a major technology upgrade programme. In February, the agency announced an €18.5 million investment initiative aimed at expanding oversight tools and gambling control procedures across both online and land-based sectors over the next three years.

That investment also reveals where regulators expect the market to move next. Gambling supervision is becoming increasingly driven by data rather than manual enforcement systems.

Match-Fixing Risks Pushed the Debate Beyond Revenue Figures

Furthermore, there was talk about the risk associated with the manipulation of sporting contests, which is an area that has now become much broader than just taxes and licenses. Match-fixing continues to be one of the greatest risks associated with licensed gambling operations since it poses a threat not only to sport but also to wagering systems in general. It was noted that the ability of the agency to transmit data from the betting accounts of betting consumers to CONI has been increased.

This allows the two organisations to cooperate more closely on investigations of suspicious betting patterns. Also mentioned during the discussion was the Macolin Convention, which can be called the top international instrument aimed at fighting competition manipulation in sports.

The growing interconnection between gambling regulation and cybersecurity, the prevention of financial crimes, sport administration, and digital surveillance systems has become evident. The sector is no longer managed only through a taxation framework.

Expert Review: Why Italy’s Gambling Shift Is Attracting Wider Attention?

What is unfolding in Italy increasingly resembles a model that other regulated gambling markets may start studying closely. They are trying to maintain the substantial tax revenues from gambling while simultaneously imposing more stringent operational controls, enforcing their systems, making compliance more difficult, and upgrading their digital monitoring systems. Such efforts do not always complement each other well.

For operators, the environment is becoming more expensive to manage. Compliance technology, behavioural monitoring systems, transaction traceability, and regulatory reporting no longer operate as optional investments. They are steadily becoming operational requirements.

Larger licensed operators may eventually benefit because they possess the capital and infrastructure needed to absorb rising compliance costs more effectively. But for smaller entities, pressures on their profit margins will likely continue to increase alongside increasing regulation. Technologies dealing with fraud detection, identity verification, behavioural analysis, and monitoring might play a bigger role due to the increased automation of oversight processes.

In addition, illegal gambling sites are under increasing pressure from rapid site blocking, better cooperation between institutions, and improved digital surveillance technologies. Yet with all this effort being made, the problem persists.

With increased oversight, gambling sites simply adapt by using offshore operations, mirrored websites, cryptocurrencies, and other means of accessing gambling services anonymously. Regulators may therefore remain trapped in a continuing technological race instead of reaching a permanent enforcement solution.

Attention is now shifting towards the implementation stage of land-based reforms. Decisions involving retail licensing density, operating restrictions, and nationwide standardisation could reshape the competitive structure of Italy’s gambling market for years ahead. At the centre of the entire strategy sits a difficult balancing act. The aim to increase compliance without creating an environment where customers revert to the black markets that regulators wish to stamp out is at play.

Balancing issues of market sustainability, taxation, consumer protection, and control has very quickly become one of the major issues facing current gambling regulation throughout Europe.