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Italy’s government has issued a point-by-point refutation of Malta’s detailed opinion on its new gambling law, pledging to press ahead with issuing new concessions in the coming weeks.
Italy’s new concession law is set to exit the EU standstill after the government rejected Malta's concerns.
In its official response, the Italian government excluded the presence of “any restriction on the freedom to provide services” in its draft.
“The proposed Technical Rules are adherent to the principles and EU law” and "consolidate and make clearer, standards and technical rules that have been present in the Italian legal system since 2009, which have never been subjected to any observation that would find any impeding or discriminatory causes”.
Italy’s government has said it will make no changes to the bill as a result of comments from Malta.
Once the decree with the new technical rules is adopted and the upcoming binding opinion of the Council of State is incorporated, the Agency of Customs and Monopolies will be ready in a few weeks to launch the tender for online concessions that could generate around €300m in tax revenues.
Each licence will cost €7m and the Italian Treasury estimates there will be at least 50 applicants.
One key clarification issued by the government is that B2B companies will not need to apply for their own concessions.
The term “service provider” refers to operators in the Italian legal system and the provision that the service provider must be a concession holder is a requirement, “peacefully applied and never challenged” in dozens of previous bidding processes, the government said.
Malta’s concern “could arise from the confusion made between the ‘B2B’ concessionaires — which do not exist in the Italian legal system and are not foreseen in any way in the draft Technical Rules — and the gaming software companies that today offer their products to concessionaires with B2B services".
These companies "will be able to freely continue their activity, without the need to acquire any ad hoc concessionary title”, the government said.
Regarding alleged “restrictive and inconsistent limits for player profiles, as well as the disproportionate measures that have been implemented concerning website domains”, Malta's opinion “appears obscure", said the government.
Italy confirmed that the provision concerned is designed to allow additional measures to be added in the future related to “player identification procedures based on other digital identification tools”.
On the presence of “monetary and session limits applicable to young people aged between 18 and 24 years”, applicable only in the account registration phase, the Agency of Customs and Monopolies confirmed that “there will be no discrimination between new gaming accounts and existing gaming accounts: both player categories will be required to make such choices with the new regime".
Malta also noted that as part of draft technical rules, Italy did not take into account the principle of technological neutrality, particularly regarding requirements for using a website for remote gaming versus using an app.
According to the regulator: “The measures and characteristics provided for the website and the apps are the same and do not provide for any difference”, ensuring “absolute respect for the principle of technological neutrality”.
