In fact, in the reform plan presented by the Executive, there are references relating to the protection of investments made by the entire legal gaming supply chain and the Regions and Local Authorities are entrusted with the task of reducing the sales points that host the games, up to reach their halving allowing a more balanced distribution of the game on the territory. But it is not clear how valid the principle expressed can be in the case of new calls for tenders, while it is essential to guarantee future participants in the calls for certainty of the place where they will be able to operate.
One could think of bingo halls, for example, which by structure cannot be moved except through a total zeroing of investments and goodwill made over the years. What will happen to these companies? Furthermore, even today, it is not clear how one can think about the reorganization of the points of sale without interrupting the collection and without affecting, above all, the resources guaranteed by the supply chain: here we are talking about about eight thousand direct employees in the distribution of the devices and in addition the related induced.
And all these speeches because the principle of protection of the supply chain is postponed to a subsequent agreement between the Government and Bodies that who knows when and if it will ever arrive. Perhaps, it would have been better to punctually survey the current gaming network, fixing all the operating premises at the moment and apply the limitations to the new openings, in order to eliminate the problem of renewals and replacements that already represent an “important step” to date. overcome especially in the territories where the infamous Gambling Regulations (anti-gambling legends) are in place and which are overworking the various Regional Administrative Courts of the whole Peninsula.
The Government, moreover, always in the drafting phase of the financial maneuver, will have to worry about putting the economic accounts due from the supply chain in order, duly taking into account the decrease in the tax collection and the risks in terms of product appeal. And this is precisely because if the loss of appeal to the players could appear as a sort of “virtue”, a consequence of reducing the spread of addictions, the most concrete risk is that not only the decrease of the players is realized, but a migration from the legal network. towards the completely illegal one, in a diametrically opposite way to what has happened in recent years with the progressive regulation of gambling.
This is the pessimistic picture that stands out in front of the eyes of legitimate operators: therefore, the Government will above all have to “resist” the temptation to put a hand back into the drawers of the players involved in the game. But, given that the Ministry is thinking about a maneuver, for 2018, which is between 22 and 25 billion euros, where not all the coverage has yet been well defined, this and leaves “the door to the world open. gambling “as always happens in these situations, or rather, what has happened in recent years. But this time the “bailout” of the state budget cannot take place through games even if the 15.2 billion euros of safeguard clauses continue, without doubt, to appear more important than the gaming industry and all that gravitates around you, including resources.
