The Regional Administrative Court for Veneto has accepted the appeal of a betting shop against the application of the distance meter provided for by the regional law of Veneto.
The appellant based his appeal on the fact that he had specifically requested authorization from the Vicenza Police Headquarters for the sole marketing of public sports betting games, without the intention of installing gaming equipment such as “AWP” or “VLT”, as provided for by the Venetian Regional Law of 2019. However, the request was erroneously denied, improperly interpreting article 7 paragraph 2 of the aforementioned regional law.
In detail, the appellant (defended by lawyers Luca Giacobbe and Livio Sannino) underlined that regional legislation exclusively prohibits the installation of gaming machines in certain sensitive spaces, while his activity concerns exclusively the collection of sports bets, without involving such appliances.
In accepting the appeal, the Court underlined that the regional legislation refers exclusively to gaming machines and does not include sports bet collection activities. “From the mere reading of the art. 7, paragraph 2, of regional law n. 38/2019 – we read in the sentence – it is clear that the regional legislator has exclusively prohibited the placement of gaming machines in premises that are at a distance of less than four hundred meters from certain places deemed sensitive; this rule is assisted, from a sanctioning point of view, by the provision found in the art. 14, paragraph 2, of the same law, for which the violation of the provisions of the same article 7, paragraphs 2 and 3, is subject to a pecuniary administrative sanction from 2,000.00 euros to 6,000.00 euros for each gaming machine of which to article 110, paragraph 6, of RD 773/1931.
The different interpretation proposed by the Veneto Region cannot be shared, in whose opinion the art. 2 of the law in question would have equated both betting centers and premises where VLT machines are present within the broader category of so-called “gaming points”: in fact, the textual data of the art. 7, paragraph 2 which, as seen, makes an explicit reference only to gaming machines, requiring their placement at a distance of at least 400 meters from sites deemed sensitive”.
Furthermore, he reiterated that the regulation for betting centers is different from premises with VLT devices, as already highlighted by administrative jurisprudence. The CdS has had the opportunity in the past to highlight that “The difference between gaming rooms equipped with electronic instruments (VLT) and points of mere collection of bets, in fact, is inherent in the equipment offered to customers, which for VLT spaces consists in the presence of electronic equipment capable of monopolizing the attention of the serial gambler, whereas betting shops offer only a place to collect “bets” on sporting events”.
Consequently, the Court annulled the decision rejecting the authorization and established that the Administration must re-examine the appellant’s request.
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