Italians lose €22 billion euros on
gambling every year, a new report from the country’s top trade
union and leading consumer group said Wednesday.
Gambling is soaring in Italy, the report said.
In 2025, total gambling volume reached a record €165.34 billion,
a 5% increase over the previous year.
This figure is equivalent to 7.3% of GDP.
But citizens’ losses are also rising, amounting to €21.88
billion, a figure roughly comparable to a government budget.
Each adult spent an average of €3,284 on gambling over the
course of the year. This is the increase in revenues from the
fourth edition of the “Black Book on Gambling,” the annual
report produced by CGIL, Federconsumatori, and the Isscon
Foundation, in collaboration with Federconsumatori Modena.
This year’s title is “The Losing State.”
The most worrying growth, the report highlights, concerns online
gambling, which surpassed the €100 billion threshold in revenue
for the first time in 2025 (€100.88 billion), a 9.5% increase
over 2024 and a whopping 221% compared to 2018.
Active online gamblers are estimated at 4.8 million, with
alarming growth among young people.
A regional analysis is also included. In 2025, Isernia leads the
ranking of provincial capitals with €6,307 per capita. Patti
(Messina) tops the ranking of Italian municipalities, with
€7,715 per capita in online gambling alone.
But who benefits?
Ultimately, the report argues, not the state, given the high
healthcare and social costs it must bear, and certainly not the
citizens: the only big winners are the businesses in the sector.
In five years, their profits – the report calculates – have
grown by 165% in real terms, with aggregate turnover reaching
10.4 billion euros in 2025.
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