Games, Italians bet 65.3 billion and the State collects 9.2 billion

In 2024, the regulated market of public games collected a total of 157.4 billion euro in wagers, returning 136 billion in the form of winnings (+49% compared to 2019), for an actual expenditure of 21.4 billion euro, of which 16.3 generated by the physical channel, with 65.3 billion in sums played. This is the snapshot taken by the report 'The economic and social value of public gaming on the physical network in Italy' edited by Nomisma with the collaboration of Novomatic Italia. "In addition to their important economic and fiscal contribution to the country, regulated public games offered on the physical network contribute to the safeguarding of legality in the territory and assume an indispensable role to be increasingly valued in supporting activities for the prevention and management of gambling disorder," says Emanuele Di Faustino, Head of Industry, Retail and Services at Nomisma. But it is not all doom and gloom for the sector, which is still waiting for a reform of the physical network that has been announced and discussed with the regions but has now been officially postponed until 2026. As Faustino goes on to explain, 'Today the sector suffers from a condition of increasing regulatory and competitive marginalisation due to heterogeneous territorial restrictions and the absence of unitary regulatory direction. A fragmentation that should be overcome with a uniform national regulation, capable of guaranteeing a balance between the economic weight of the sector, legality and adequate protection of public health'.

Regulated public games offered on the physical network, which has about 85,000 unique outlets in Italy, include amusement machines, numerical games, lotteries, betting and bingo. With 53,600 outlets, the largest network is that of instant lotteries, better known as scratch cards. Leading the ranking of regions with the highest number of physical outlets in almost all gaming categories is Lombardy, with a weight on the national total of between 13% and 16%, followed by Lazio and Campania.

The added value created by the public gaming sector on the physical network in terms of direct, indirect and induced impact contributes 1.1% of the national GDP. In particular, companies active in the concession, management and distribution of public games on physical networks produced a total added value of EUR 20.8 billion in 2024. Of this 6.2 billion is attributable to the direct effect, i.e. the effects directly attributable to concessionaires, operators, specialised and generalist networks.

The indirect effect, i.e. that produced by suppliers and related supply chains, is EUR 8.1 billion. Lastly, the induced effect, i.e. that generated by the increase in income received by all those involved in various ways in this process, is EUR 6.5 billion. Taking the three effects together, Nomisma estimates a final multiplier of 3.4. This means that for every euro of added value created by public gaming enterprises on the physical network, a total of 3.4 is generated for the Italian economic system.

For more than a decade now, gaming has been one of the main sources of tax revenue administered by the Customs and Monopolies Agency, accounting for 13 per cent of the Agency's total revenue in 2024. The physical network alone, without taking into account online gaming, which grew strongly with the pandemic and in the following years, produced 9.2 billion in tax revenue in 2024.