Online gambling grows in small municipalities: the most critical cases in the South
This is what emerges from the study 'Not so small. The spread of online gambling in small Italian municipalities' carried out by Federconsumatori, the Isscon foundation and CGIL.
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Online gambling is growing in small municipalities and affects in a 'more worrying' manner those in the South where, in some cases, per capita spending also exceeds 1,000 euro per month. The picture that focuses on towns with a population of between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants was drawn by the report, now in its second edition, 'Not so small. The spread of online gambling in small Italian municipalities' produced by Federconsumatori, the Isscon foundation and CGIL.
Despite the "difficulty in finding data", as the authors point out in the foreword, the research offers a cross-section of what is happening in the national scenario and analyses 3,142 municipalities "with a population between 2,000 and 9,999 inhabitants, equal to about 40% of those in Italy". "The spread of online gambling is highly suspicious, particularly in some southern regions", the authors write. Among these are 116 municipalities in 'acute gambling crisis', where online gambling is more than double the national average".
Campania tops for online gaming
Then the numbers and the ranking of how much was spent in the various regions last year. At the top, as the report emphasises, is Campania, where 3,450 euro per capita was spent in online gambling alone. Below it is Campania, with 2,910 euro, and Sicily, with 2,895. Then there are the municipalities. At the top of the ranking is "Lacco Ameno, on the island of Ischia, where each citizen in 2024 played online 12,492 euro, over 1,000 euro per month, with a growth of 62% compared to 2023, and 351% compared to 2022)". Not far behind is Capri, "long at the top of the list", where "10,393 euro per capita was played".
In third place is the municipality of Mairano in the province of Brescia where, registering "a 250% increase over a two-year period, an average of 10,374 euro has been gambled", followed by "Nociglia with 10,165 euro, Gravedona e Uniti with 9,275 euro per citizen in the 18-74 age bracket". Other municipalities from Calabria, Sicily and Lombardy are also on the list. "The province of Brescia, in addition to Mairano," the report goes on to say, "also records the presence of Polaveno and Moniga del Garda (which, however, halves the amount gambled), with bets that are triple the national average".
