When Luciano entered an anti-addiction clinic in the central Italian city of Pisa, the only thing he had not lost after years of gambling was the clothes he was wearing. Everything was gone: the family home, savings, and his dignity.
“I was obsessed with casinos, horses, everything. I basically toured every casino in Europe. I spent all my money, I gambled, and I gambled away everything there,” the 69-year-old retired railway worker told Reuters.
Luciano’s story reveals some of the darker realities behind Italy’s emergence as Europe’s largest gambling market as the proliferation of online and smartphone betting made betting easier.
The growth of the Italian gambling industry has surpassed that of the UK, Germany and France, with total gaming revenue (the difference between the amount bet and the amount won) reaching €21.5 billion ($25 billion) in 2024.
family values
A burgeoning gambling habit has helped boost state coffers and put conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a self-described defender of family values, at odds with the Catholic Church and other groups calling for stricter regulations.
“It is clear that a huge effort (to control gambling) is needed by everyone because it ruins people, impoverishes them and in many cases destroys relationships,” Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian bishops’ conference, said in June.
There are signs that the mafia is involved in Italy’s gambling addiction. This year’s “Black Book of Gambling” report compiled by the CGIL union found that gambling was particularly widespread in the poor and mafia-dense southern regions.
Italy’s anti-mafia department routinely lists gambling and online gambling as sectors infiltrated by mafia groups, particularly the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, for money laundering purposes.
fallout from gambling
About 20.5 million Italians, or 43% of the adult population, gambled at least once in 2022, with a higher incidence among men, Italy’s National Research Council reported last year.
Of those, 1.1 million gambled for at least an hour a day. This was a common pattern for Luciano and three other former addicts. Reuters interviewed him for this story. They asked that their names be changed to protect their privacy.
Francesco, 52, said he started gambling as a child. He remembered how in middle school his teacher scolded him for playing backgammon with a classmate under his desk for a 5-eurocent punt.
He feels better now, but gambling will always be a temptation. “It’s like an eagle sitting on my shoulder,” he said.
Industry representatives said the industry is committed to promoting responsible gambling and the government agency that oversees it believes excessive deterrence is ineffective because it drives people into illegal gambling.
“We currently estimate that there is an underground illegal market worth more than 10% of the legal market,” Mario Lollobrigida, head of the Customs and Gaming Department, said last month.
A senior government official added: “Italy takes a pragmatic approach to gambling, recognizing the contribution the gambling industry makes to jobs and the economy and is willing to support its growth, while carefully monitoring risks.”
Giovanni, a 44-year-old veterinarian who overcame his slot machine betting addiction about six months ago, said the government was not doing enough to curb gambling.
“It’s as if the Italian state encourages its citizens to gamble. The ads are everywhere, the TV commercials say ‘Do you like easy wins?’ It’s as if they want to create a problem that they don’t know how to deal with.”
For Luciano, it took about 10 years of group therapy at Pisa’s SERD, a public health center that treats drug and alcohol addicts. He kicked a habit that started when he picked up a flyer on the train offering a free dinner at a casino.
“I said to myself, ‘Okay, now I’m going to go play in Monte Carlo, because then I’ll get back the money I lost and solve the problem. I didn’t solve the problem. I lost everything, even my dignity.'”
The psychologist who treated him said that gambling often causes families to break up. “We come across a lot of very angry wives and very guilty husbands,” SERD director Dr Rosanna Cardia told Reuters. “Sometimes marital separation follows.”
The growth of online betting
Gambling spending by Italians has soared over the past two decades, reaching €157.4 billion in 2024, up more than 15% year-on-year since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Flutter, the world’s largest online gambling company, acquired prominent domestic player Sisal in 2021, while domestic market leader Lottomatica has thrived, with revenue increasing fivefold from 2020 to 2024 and being listed on the Milan Stock Exchange’s Blue Chip Index in September.
“We are performing very well in the Italian market, which is a big market for both consumer dynamics and regulation. We think this is a long-term trend and will continue for a very long time,” CEO Guglielmo Angelozzi said in July.
Against this backdrop, the state collected €11.5 billion in gambling taxes last year, compared to €1.4 billion from alcohol and €14.5 billion from tobacco. However, imports decreased slightly compared to 2023, at €11.6 billion.
Industry experts say this is due to the proliferation of low-tax online gambling at the expense of higher-taxed in-person gambling, such as buying slot machines or scratch cards.
Emiliano Contini, an activist with anti-addiction cooperative Il Cammino, said a blanket ban on gambling was unrealistic. But he called for a more honest assessment of the costs to society.
“From 2004 to 2024, overall gambling volume increased from around €25 billion to over €157 billion, while tax collections increased from around €7 billion to €11.5 billion. Is this game really worth playing?”
