Italian Online Gaming Licensing Procedures

New Regulatory Framework 

The new Italian-style remote gaming featured the most significant alterations to the common EU legislation:

• An AAMS-granted, 9-year license is required to be enabled to provide remote legal gaming services 
• The one-off cost of the licence is €350.000 (plus Vat at 20%) payable upon license issuance. 
  The remote gaming licence currently covers:
• fixed odds/pool sports and horserace betting,
• skill gaming (including online poker tournaments and any other card tournaments all eligible for skill gaming classification),
• online scratch-and-win (subject to a sub-distribution agreement with the current exclusive lottery licence holder),
• The AAMS license application is open to any gaming operator based in an European Economic Area jurisdiction (“EEA” ie. European Union countries plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein)
• The license may be issued directly to a foreign applicant on condition that it holds an EEA passport, hence it is no longer required for the applicant to incorporate an Italian company.
• The license may be granted also to a non-operator (such a startup or a company coming from a totally different business sector) subject to:
• release in favor of AAMS of an €1,5 million bank guarantee and
• an audit to be provided by an independent certificator to the extent that the applicant holds the required technological infrastructure, know-how and management resources to run the AAMS licence 
• Remote gaming services can only be offered to Italian residents through a dedicated and ring-fenced platform identified by the ’.it’ suffix which must be fully linked up the centralized control system ran by AAMS via its technological partner SOGEI, so that each bet/wager/stake placed by an Italian customer can be duly recorded, monitored, tracked, validated and taxed.
• Provision of remote gaming services from a foreign-based ‘.com’ platform to Italian residents is strictly forbidden and subject to the blacklist restrictions
• Whoever offers online gaming services in Italy without holding an AAMS-granted license is subject to imprisonment from 6 months up to three years
• Whoever organizes, offers and takes remote bets in Italy on any games regulated by AAMS but in ways other than those required by the AAMS rules, is subject to arrest from three months up to one year and to a fine ranging from €500 to €5000 even if the violator does hold an AAMS license
• AAMS licensees are allowed to keep their gaming servers abroad provided they are located in the EEA space and a real time connection with the AAMS centralized control system is in place subject to all appropriate checks and tests to be carried out remotely by the Italian regulator.

Taxes

Taxation model introduced in Italy is comprised of turnover-based (“TOB”) and gross profit-based (“GPB”). The following games are to be subject to TOB taxation (relevant applicable rates in brackets):

• sports betting (3,5% on average),
• horserace betting (nearly 10%),
• skill-gaming (3% flat),
• bingo (nearly 11,5%).

All brand new remote games will instead be subject to GPB taxation at a flat 20% rate, namely:

• online casino,
• poker and ring games,
• betting exchange and bets on virtual events.

Since AAMS comes up with various decrees regarding the new remote gaming rules, the currently certified licensees are obliged to timely:

• upgrade their AAMS license agreement by signing the appropriate addendum document,
• get their platform and cash games duly certified, and then
• apply to AAMS to be authorized to go live with the online casino and/or poker offer. 

By 2011 the most of the online gaming reform has been completed. However, regulation is still required in the fields of:

• Bingo. Online bingo offerings are very limited now as it is not very attractive, especially to mono-product foreign operators because the game management is centralized to a large extent and the only type of bingo game allowed by AAMS is the typical 90-number based, tombola-like formula, very popular in Italy.
• Betting Exchange and Betting on Virtual Events. These products still require being included in the AAMS games portfolio with the relevant regulatory provisions. 
• Mobile Gaming. Originally, the AAMS regulations refer to ‘remote gaming’ in general, which regards Internet, interactive television and mobile. However, due to the wide spread of mobile technologies, mobile gaming is deemed as a separate remote gaming field, thus requiring proper regulation in Italy.

Italy’s government advocates itself as the original franchising authority on gambling (which is then diligently licensed under extensive regulations) for two main reasons: to maintain their authority in the area of social mores and public order and to keep gambling within the reach of the government’s fiscal net.

Given the recent changes in Italian legislation, there can be amendments to licencing procedure and costs involved. For more details about obtaining a remote gaming license in Italy, please visit AAMS.