Reports say that the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) made illegal gambling in Italy grow by more than half. Lottomatica did some research and found that illegal gambling went up in Covid-19. A study given to Italy’s Senate earlier this week says that illegal gambling is expected to bring in €18 billion by 2020. Lottomatica has warned that the illegal market could reach €20 billion by the end of the year, which is more than the €12 billion predicted for 2019.
The report says that Italian officials have been stricter in the last few months because of this. From January 2020 to April 2021, a secret gambling room was found every three days. During this period, there were 145 police investigations and 1,000 calls to law enforcement. This is up from 493 in 2019.
What had actually happened in Italy’s gambling scene during covid?
Senator Mauro Maria Marino, who is in charge of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Gaming, says it is time to look at the country’s gaming laws again. As part of the report, a survey was done, and the results showed that almost all of the people who filled it out had the same opinion.
83.6 percent of the people who took part in this survey think that the government should oversee and regulate the gaming industry to keep the players and the public’s best interests in mind. Also, 59.8% of the people polled said that stricter penalties for legal gambling would only make more people involved in illegal activities. In comparison, 28.9% said that a total ban on gambling would reduce the number of people who gamble and improve public health at the same time. “We must focus on the quality of regulation and standardize sectoral laws at the national level,” said Marino, to avoid laws that conflict.
Some problems need to be fixed before the sector can be truly reformed, but the most important ones are online gambling, illegal gambling, and how much of a negative effect Covid had on the size of the gambling industry. BizzoCasino is one of the finest casinos for online play.
The report also talked about how the pandemic affected Italy’s legal gambling business. The amount of money tax authorities got went down by 4.1%, the number of money players won went down by 15.7%, and the number of money operators made went down by 2.3 billion euros. Overall, the handle went down by 22.2 billion euros. Even though revenue from online gambling went up by €12.8bn, it wasn’t enough to make up for the €35bn drop in revenue from land-based gambling. The research also showed that there isn’t a state-wide plan to help people addicted to gambling. For people at risk of becoming addicted to gambling, putting together a network of support should be a top priority.
81.7% of those polled said that it should be the state’s job to warn and educate gamblers about the dangers of becoming addicted to gambling. Paola Severino, a criminal law professor at Luiss Guido Carli University, says, “The Lottomatica-Censis Report gives us essential evidence to understand the legislative strategy and gets rid of many misconceptions about an issue that is more about culture than the law.”
Conclusion
When gaming is regulated, the Mafia and other criminal groups lose out on large market parts. To find illegal money flows quickly and stop capital and criminal interests from getting into the legal economy, our country needs to strengthen the relationship between public oversight agencies and legal system operators.
