Italy Set to Award 120 Gaming Licenses

Italian gaming authorities have announced they will award a total of 120 gaming licenses.

According to available information, the licenses will be awarded on a first come first served basis, with no bidding process. At least one-third of that number will be issued to those operators already present in the Italian market, whose licenses are expiring.

Licensing Details

Legislators stated there would be no restrictions when applying for a license. However, operators without a license in Italy or EU, with a minimum turnover of at least €1.5 million for a period of two years, will be required to post an additional bank guarantee of €1.5 million.

The license covers all games except those subject to exclusive licenses, whose list includes sports betting, horse betting, casino, poker, and fantasy sport.

It’s reasonable to expect there will be many interested sides, especially since the Italian market has been recording strong performance over the last two year, along with the liberalization of sports betting and horse betting, and the recently announced poker sharing liquidity.

In addition to that, the country has a more friendly tax policy – with a 20% gross gaming revenue (GGR) tax on poker, casino, skill games, betting exchange and bingo, 22% GGR tax on online sports betting and 47% GGR tax on horse betting.

All Done In 3 to 5 Months

All interested operators can apply until March 19 this year, while the applications will be opened a month later. It will take around three to five months for the entire process to be completed.

The participation fee for operators wishing to apply for the license is €200,000, while the authorities estimate they will raise around €24 million in revenues during the process itself. All issued licenses will be valid until December 31, 2022, while operators such as Winamax, Marathonbet, and Pinnacle have already expressed their intention of applying for a license.

Along with the licensing process, the authorities announced they would be cracking down on all those operators without a local license, introducing new and much stricter criminal and tax-related sanctions.