Italy budget day: gambling’s €700 million bill could fall on lotteries and online

Italy’s Cabinet meets today to sign off the 2027 budget. The first reports naming where gambling’s share will come from point to lotteries and online gaming — not retail concessions.

Gambling operators in Italy may cover their roughly €700 million slice of the 2027 budget through the aggio — the commission paid on lottery sales — and through online gaming, according to the financial daily Milano Finanza. The claim sits in a single line buried in the paper’s broader budget coverage. Earlier reports had said the mechanism was still undecided.

If it holds, the burden would move away from land-based retail. But this is pre-Cabinet reporting, and the final text may look different.

Il Sole 24 Ore, citing LaPresse, reports that Cabinet is due to meet at around 3pm today (28 October), though the timing has slipped several times already. The €23.5 billion package leans on about €5 billion from banks and insurers, according to Sky TG24. Sources in the governing majority say a planned income tax cut for people earning above €50,000 has been scrapped.

A round number, an open question

The €700 million figure is rounded. The draft budgetary plan sent to Brussels puts gambling’s contribution at €718 million in 2027 and 2028, then €478 million in 2029 — close to €1.9 billion across three years.

The Milano Finanza line also clashes with other recent reporting. Yesterday, Agimeg laid out scenarios built around a one-point rise in PREU, Italy’s levy on gaming machine stakes, plus far more expensive concession extensions. Jamma reported that a smaller PREU increase was running into resistance inside the governing majority.

What each segment stands to lose

The lottery route raises contractual problems. The Lotto concession was re-awarded in 2025 to the LottoItalia consortium, led by IGT, for nine years at a fixed 6% aggio. Changing that rate mid-concession could be legally tricky. A lower aggio would also shrink the share of takings that operators and their retail networks keep.

Online operators would take on new costs on top of the ones they already carry. Licences under the regime that launched in November 2025 cost €7 million each. Licensees also pay an annual concession fee of 3% of net margin. They have to certify their systems under new technical rules by 15 February 2027, and Italy’s Dignity Decree still bans gambling advertising.

Land-based operators aren’t spared either. Licences for slots, retail betting and bingo run out on 31 December 2026, so another paid extension is needed whatever happens. The current extension brings in about €232.76 million a year.

Retail groups had feared a larger share of the bill. Dario Peirone, director general of the Istituto Milton Friedman think tank, warned last week that more tax tightening “would spell the final collapse of land-based gambling”.

Italy and the UK both settle gambling taxes today, with Chancellor John Healey widely expected to raise machine games duty in his first autumn budget. Once Italy’s Cabinet approves the bill it goes to parliament, and operators will only learn where the burden lands when the text is published.

Source: igamingbusiness.com