{"id":281866,"date":"2025-11-09T19:54:48","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T19:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/281866\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T19:54:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T19:54:48","slug":"betting-on-misery-the-dark-side-of-italys-gambling-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/281866\/","title":{"rendered":"Betting on misery: The dark side of Italy\u2019s gambling\u00a0passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

PISA, Italy \u2013 When Mr Luciano walked into an anti-addiction clinic in the central Italian city of Pisa, the only thing he had not lost to years of gambling were the clothes he was wearing. Everything else \u2013 family homes, savings, his dignity \u2013 was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI devoted myself to casinos, horses, everything. Basically, I toured all the casinos in Europe; I spent all my assets, I gambled them, I gambled everything away in those places,\u201d the 69-year-old retired railway worker told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Mr Luciano\u2019s story exemplifies some of the darker realities behind Italy\u2019s emergence as Europe\u2019s largest gambling market, with the spread of online and smartphone betting making it ever easier to place wagers.<\/p>\n

The growth of Italy\u2019s gambling industry has outpaced Britain, Germany, and France, with gross gaming revenues \u2013 the difference between the amount wagered and the amount won \u2013 hitting \u20ac21.5 billion (S$32.3 billion) in 2024.<\/p>\n

Booming betting habits have helped to line state coffers and have put conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a self-declared defender of family values, at odds with the Catholic Church and others who have called for tighter regulation.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Gambling) ruins people, it impoverishes, in many cases it destroys relationships, so it is clear that a huge effort (to control it) is needed by everyone,\u201d the head of the Italian Bishops\u2019 Conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, said in June.<\/p>\n

There are indications that the mafia has a hand in Italy\u2019s gambling addiction: the 2025 Black Book Of Gambling report, compiled by the CGIL trade union, showed betting was especially widespread in poorer and mafia-ridden southern regions. <\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s anti-Mafia directorate routinely lists gambling and online betting as a sector infiltrated by mafia groups, particularly the Calabrian \u2018Ndrangheta, for money laundering purposes. <\/p>\n

About 20.5 million Italians, 43 per cent of the adult population, gambled at least once in 2022, with a higher incidence among men, the Italian National Research Council reported in 2024. <\/p>\n

Among them, 1.1 million spent at least one hour gambling on a typical day \u2013 a pattern common to Mr Luciano and three other former addicts Reuters spoke to for this story. They asked for their names to be changed to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mr Luciano and Mr Francesco, two former gambling addicts, being interviewed by Reuters Oct 15. They requested that their names be changed and their faces concealed to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n

PHOTO: REUTERS<\/p>\n

Mr Francesco, 52, said his gambling started in childhood. He recalled how a teacher in junior high school told him off for playing dice under the desk with a classmate, for 100 lira (S$0.07) punts. The lira is Italy\u2019s pre-euro currency.<\/p>\n

Although he now feels cured, gambling will always be a temptation.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s like a vulture sitting on my shoulder,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Industry representatives say the sector is committed to promoting responsible gambling, and the government agency that oversees it believes excessive curbs do not work, as they push people towards illegal betting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018We estimate that there is an underground, illegal market now worth over 10 per cent of the legal market,\u201d Mr Mario Lollobrigida, head of the gambling department of the Customs and Monopolies Agency, said in October.<\/p>\n

A senior government official added: \u201cItaly takes a pragmatic approach towards gambling, recognising the contribution the industry makes to jobs and the economy, and is happy to support its growth, while also carefully monitoring the risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Giovanni, a 44-year-old veterinarian who managed to break his addiction to slot-machine betting around six months ago, said the government was not doing enough to curb gambling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s as if the Italian state is encouraging citizens to gamble. There\u2019s advertising everywhere; there are TV ads where they say, \u2018Do you like easy wins?\u2019 It\u2019s like they want to create a problem which they then don\u2019t know how to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mr Luciano, it took around 10 years of group therapy at Pisa\u2019s Serd \u2013 a public health centre that also treats drug and alcohol addicts \u2013 to kick a habit that started when he picked up a flyer on a train that offered free dinner at a casino.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I\u2019d tell myself: fine, now I\u2019ll go play in Monte Carlo because then I\u2019ll win back the money I lost and solve my problems. I never solved my problems; I lost everything, I even lost my dignity,\u201d he said, holding back tears.<\/p>\n

The psychologist who treated him said gambling leads to many broken homes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot of very angry wives, and very guilty husbands,\u201d Serd\u2019s Dr Rosanna Cardia told Reuters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, marital separation follows,\u201d Dr Cardia added.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr Rosanna Cardia, a psychologist at the anti-addiction unit of the public health system.<\/p>\n

PHOTO: REUTERS<\/p>\n

Italians\u2019 spending on gambling has surged in the last 20 years, with year-on-year increases of more than 15 per cent following the Covid-19 pandemic, reaching \u20ac157.4 billion in 2024. <\/p>\n

Flutter, the world\u2019s biggest online gambling company, bought well-known domestic player Sisal in 2021, and the national market leader Lottomatica has thrived, enjoying a fivefold revenue increase from 2020 to 2024 and taking a spot on Milan bourse\u2019s blue-chip index in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing very well in the Italian market, which is a great market both for the consumer dynamics and regulation. We think this trend is a long-term trend and will continue for a very long time,\u201d chief executive Guglielmo Angelozzi said in July.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A man plays a slot machine in a shop in Rome.<\/p>\n

PHOTO: REUTERS<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, the state collected \u20ac11.5 billion in gambling taxes in 2024 \u2013 compared with \u20ac1.4 billion from alcohol and \u20ac14.5 billion from tobacco \u2013 although revenue fell slightly from \u20ac11.6 billion in 2023.<\/p>\n

Industry experts say this was due to the spread of online gambling \u2013 subject to lower tax rates \u2013 at the expense of more heavily taxed in-person gambling, such as playing slot machines or buying scratch cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Emiliano Contini, a campaigner from the anti-addiction cooperative Il Cammino, said an outright ban on gambling would be unrealistic. But he called for a more honest assessment of its costs to society.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 2004 to 2024, total gambling jumped from around 25 to more than \u20ac157 billion, but the tax intake rose only from about \u20ac7 billion to \u20ac11.5 billion: is the game really worth the candle?\u201d REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PISA, Italy \u2013 When Mr Luciano walked into an anti-addiction clinic in the central Italian city of Pisa,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-281866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}