Gambling licenses in Italy

Shorter period of gambling licenses in Italy admissible

In Italy the organisation of betting and gambling, including the collection of bets, is subject to possession of a licence and police authorisation. In 1999, publicly-traded limited liability companies were excluded from tendering procedures for the award of licences.

In its judgment C-463-13, the Court first states that both the revocation and redistribution of previous licences and the award by public tender of an adequate number of new licences could be appropriate courses of action in order to remedy the unlawful exclusion of certain operators. In the non-harmonised area of betting and gambling, national authorities may, as a result of the discretion they enjoy, choose between those approaches.

The Court concludes that the Italian legislation is consistent with the principles of equal treatment and effectiveness.

The Court recalls that restrictions on gambling and betting activities may be justified by overriding reasons in the public interest (consumer protection and the prevention of fraud and incitement to squander money on gambling) as well as the objective of combating criminality. Betting and gambling are otherwise part of the areas in which there are significant moral, religious and cultural differences between the Member States.

The Court thus finds that, in this particular context, the reorganisation of the licensing system through the alignment of licence expiry dates may contribute to a coherent pursuit of the legitimate objectives of reducing gambling opportunities or of combating criminality linked to betting and gambling and does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

If, in future, the Italian national authorities wanted to reduce the number of licences granted or to exercise stricter control over activities in the field of betting and gambling, such measures would be facilitated in the event that all the licences were granted for the same duration and expired at the same time.

Consequently, the Court declares that EU law does not preclude Italy from organising, in order to align the expiry dates of the various licences, a fresh call for tenders for the award of licences whose period of validity is shorter than that of licences awarded previously.