Massimo Borghi, Regional Coordinator of Public Notice, added: “We thank BPER Banca for having believed in and supported this important information and awareness journey this year too which involved thousands of students, as well as hundreds of citizens including journalists, local administrators, educators and social workers. Knowing in depth the pathological and criminal aspect of gambling is the first form of prevention that can be implemented to guarantee the health and safety of citizens, starting from the youngest.
“The reorganization of the regulations on public gaming – as emerged during today’s seminar – represents an opportunity not to be missed. In this discussion we are not starting from scratch: the experience already gained in recent years in the territories and the guidelines expressed by administrative jurisprudence confirm the importance of putting the protection of public health first over tax revenue and private economic interests. The occasion of reordering of the game on physical network will be, therefore, it will be useful if it consolidates tools, such as the distance meter and time limits, also considered fundamental by the TAR and the Council of State”.
Watch the full recording of the meeting at this link:
Massimo Masetti, representative of Public Notice on the topic of gambling, commented how “With the issuing of the Legislative Decree on online games, attention has shifted to the reorganization of the physical network, for which the path involves the prior definition of a programmatic agreement between the State, Regions and local authorities. A discussion to be addressed with the utmost care, in particular for the important health protection tools put in place in recent years by Regions and Municipalities (from the distance meter to time limits), the validity of which has been reiterated several times by administrative jurisprudence and constitutional and which we believe it is essential to safeguard.
“Furthermore, great attention must be paid to the issue of sharing in the tax revenues of Local Authorities – concluded Masetti – This measure risks recreating a system of dependence of the budgets of the entities themselves on the gambling present in the territory, thus making prevention and combating pathological gambling actions particularly complex. In practice, the condition already in place for the state budget which depends on the share of revenue deriving from gambling would be recreated, making it quite difficult to think in terms of reducing supply, which is instead requested on several occasions by local authorities and active subjects. in the field of prevention and combating pathological gambling”.
Andrea Bigalli, Libera representative and journalistconcluded: “As you have heard, this sector attracts monstrous interests, the sector lobbies are very powerful and they all share a pre-mafia, criminogenic culture, that of easy money. Furthermore, as demonstrated by numerous investigations in recent years, the mafias have largely entered this market, both in the legal and illegal sectors.
“All of these effects have led to the proliferation of gambling disorder in all Italian regions, which cannot be reduced only to the health of the individual but generate disruptive effects on the economy of families and on relationships within communities , isolating the individual and sometimes leading to serious conditions of socio-economic marginality. So it’s today priority to do something, we need to make people understand that gambling is dangerous and limit all of this. We must take action and implement a series of concrete actions to change this criminal system that leads to social and cultural impoverishment.”
