“The Customs and Monopolies Agency operates in multiple and significant sectors of the national economy, ensuring revenues for the treasury amounting to about 79 billion euros on an annual basis. The Agency has always committed to the continuous improvement of relations with taxpayers, ensuring in a perspective of transparency and mutual trust, the adoption of measures to simplify and facilitate tax compliance“. This was stated by the Director of the Customs and Monopolies Agency, Roberto Alesse, during his hearing at the Finance and Treasury Committee of the Senate.
“The Agency will commit to the continuous and constant pursuit of the goal of strengthening compliance also through the recognition of greater simplifications for trustworthy economic operators, thereby directing the activity of prevention and contrast mainly towards those areas that present greater risks of non-compliant behavior“.
“I would like to inform this Commission” continues Alesse, “about the important memorandum of understanding signed with the Guardia di Finanza with a three-year duration for the coordination of activities to combat tax offenses, but also about the equally significant protocols signed with other Law Enforcement Forces”.
“The Agency will enhance international cooperation with similar administrations, in order to ensure an effective and timely action against fraud”.
“The Agency’s activity will also continue in the public gaming sector, in order to ensure the commitment aimed at raising the quality of the gaming offer protecting vulnerable subjects and combating illegal gaming. In Italy, as is known, the organizational model of the public gaming system and its regulation modes are provided for and regulated in the exercise of the state reserve, which distinguishes games that are not allowed from those that are allowed. The entire matter of public gaming is in the process of restructuring as part of the implementation measures of the Delegation Law. As is known, the delegated decree on remote gaming, which does not suffer from the particular complexity caused by concurrent legislation between State and Region, is in the process of being approved. Precisely in order to overcome the critical issues that have slowed down the process of reassigning concessions for physical network gaming, resulting from the overlap of national, regional, and municipal regulation, the Agency is already involved in the work of the technical table that sees the involvement of the Government, local authorities, the Anci, and the Upi for the positive conclusion of the entire public gaming sector”.
“For the pursuit of objectives in the field of public gaming, therefore, activities of analysis aimed at the realization of the overall reform of public gaming will contribute in order to ensure, with unchanged treasury revenue, the reduction of risks associated with gambling disorder as well as the strengthening of the control of the ban on gambling to minors, also through the Co.Pre.G.I. For problem players, at risk of gambling disorder, tools for limiting gaming predictive of risk and computer controls that will allow identifying compulsive gaming behaviors are under study. Also, through responsible gaming tools, it will be possible to identify the actual awareness of the compulsive player’s behavior, and through real-time gaming monitoring tools, it will be possible to intervene on gaming accounts by temporarily suspending the possibility of playing. The informative campaigns and initiatives of responsible communication already planned will provide further tools to counteract the risk of gambling addiction“.
“The Agency is well aware that it is necessary to achieve a necessary balance between two opposing interests: health protection and recognition of the public gaming matter for the purpose of ensuring revenue. All tools will be oriented towards achieving this balance”.
“For the cost of 7 million euros as a one-time fee for each online concession, the Agency has taken into account both the known market data regarding the actual profitability and the consequent possibility of a reduction in the total number of active concessions, an eventuality with its own added value. Indeed, the online gaming tender sector requires very significant investments and therefore only a solid and structured entrepreneurship can afford it. Given this, despite the increase in cost, the profitability of the concession will allow the issuance of about 50 concessions with the consequent acquisition of about 350 million euros in revenue, of which about 200 million at the time of awarding and 150 at the time of the actual assumption of service by the winner. This is an estimate made by the Agency on a prudential basis, in order to quantify the additional revenues resulting from the entry into force of the provisions contained in the legislative decree”.
“The amortization of the one-time fee of 7 million euros over the 9 years of concession” Alesse argues, “would have an impact on the net margin of 3.2% for the largest operator and up to 5% per year for about 20 operators, going to 10% per year only for very small operators, reaching 30% of the annual margin for the current 50th operator for tender. This estimate was made on the fees related to the year 2022 with a market that in the meantime has grown by 13% on a yearly basis. With the possible reduction of the one-time fee to 3.5 million euros, the total revenue would remain unchanged only if the winners were 100, that is even more than the current concessionaires. The reduction of the one-time fee would not therefore lead to a significant increase in the number of interested operators, but rather would lead to a reduction in treasury revenues. The revenues could indeed almost halve. The evaluations made by the Agency are of a technical nature and are based on one hand on financial data available and on prospective market evaluations, on the other hand, they are based on the actual need to manage a market made up of operators who are reliable and able to meet the numerous demands in terms of anti-money laundering and health protection”.
“The management of automated Lotto and other fixed-odds numerical games has been entrusted, as is known, to Lottomatica in a mono-concession regime since 2016 with a non-renewable nine-year duration and therefore will expire in 2025. For these games, the State’s revenue is made up of the amount of tender from which the commission and winnings are deducted. The one-time fee paid for the 9-year concession was 750 million euros. In these 9 years, a level of collection amounting to 7.7 billion euros is estimated. The insertion of the rule relating to the Lotto tender is appropriate in consideration of the expiration of the existing concession set for November 30, 2025″.
“Online poker was legalized in 2006. In the Stability Law of 2015, measures to support various games in crisis were adopted. To support poker, ADM signed an agreement with the gaming regulation authorities of France, Spain, and Portugal to allow the sharing of online poker liquidity with the aim of increasing the attractiveness of legal online poker. International liquidity was a particularly prudent and restrictive form, but it was nonetheless criticized as many believed it could become a money laundering tool, and therefore the agreement was blocked. According to our assessments, such new gaming modes would not increase treasury revenues and, on the contrary, could pose a serious risk of money laundering”. sb/AGIMEG
