Italy's Courts Are Writing Its Retail Gambling Rules as the 31 December Concession Deadline Nears

The Council of State has upheld the €100 weekly cash cap at Italy's top-up shops and struck down a ban on internet-connected devices there, while the decree meant to reorganise betting shops, gaming halls and machines lapsed in August. Rulings, not legislation, are now setting the rules for retail.

• Italy's Council of State, in judgment no. 7220/2026 published on 30 September, upheld the €100 weekly cash top-up limit and the withdrawal ban at online gaming recharge points, but annulled the Customs and Monopolies Agency's (ADM) blanket ban on internet-connected devices there
• The power to reorganise land-based gambling under the 2023 Tax Delegation Law expired on 29 August 2026 without a decree, and betting, bingo and gaming-machine concessions run out on 31 December 2026 under the 2025 Budget Law
• At the ACADI forum in Rome on 7 October, Renato Loiero, economic adviser to the Prime Minister's office, called for technical extensions without added fiscal burden, while the Treasury has reportedly been weighing a three-year, fee-paying extension
• Mario Lollobrigida, ADM's games director, said the shelved decree should restart reform in the next legislature, and blamed local distance and opening-hours rules for pushing demand online or to illegal operators
• Concessionaires' association ACADI says gaming-machine stakes fell 35.3% between 2018 and 2025 to €31.5 billion, and suggests court rulings could deliver the uniform national rules politics has not

The Council of State Rules on Top-Up Shops While the Retail Decree Stays Unwritten

The Sixth Section of the Council of State published its judgment on 30 September, on an appeal by around 40 internet points and small operators against ADM, with Sisal Italia as a counterparty. They challenged ADM's determination of 25 October 2024 setting up the register of recharge points (PVRs) created by Article 13 of Legislative Decree 41/2024, the decree that reorganised online gambling.

The court upheld the €100 weekly cap on PVR top-ups in cash or with payment instruments the account holder has not validated with the operator. It rejected the argument that the cap was a disproportionate anti-money-laundering measure, holding instead that it protects health, a criterion of Article 15 of Law 111/2023. Cash, the judges wrote, can make it easier for a player at risk to hide gambling spending from family members. The fight against illegal gambling, they added, cannot justify progressively eroding the limits on legal play.

The judges also upheld the ban on withdrawing account balances at PVRs, reasoning that a withdrawal after a win is in substance a payout. They annulled Article 6(4)(g) of ADM's determination, which barred PVRs from offering any device connected to the internet, finding that it copied a provision of the 2012 Balduzzi decree struck down by the Constitutional Court in judgment 104/2025 and in effect excluded internet points. ADM may write a narrower rule. The court also rejected ADM's cross-appeal: the register could not apply to operators on technical extensions before the new online licences were awarded. Jamma reports a parallel ruling for Stake Italy, one of 20 appeals.

ADM is preparing a determination with fresh deadlines to join the register, Agipronews reported on 7 October. About 23,000 shops registered in 2024, against 30,000 expected by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Distance Rules Are Being Settled Case by Case

Retail has no national framework to apply. Law 111/2023 asked for concertation with regions and municipalities on where gambling venues may sit, and for distance parameters valid across the whole country. Law 120/2025 extended the deadline to 29 August 2026, and that date passed without a retail decree. The 2025 Budget Law had already extended the land-based concessions to 31 December 2026, citing the "persistent lack of agreement" with regions and local authorities, at €108,000 a year per bingo hall, €9,500 or €5,700 per betting right, €120 per gaming machine and €4,000 per video lottery terminal right.

The courts are filling the gap. On 22 July the Council of State's Fourth Section, in judgment 5990/2026, rejected a Ravenna betting-shop owner's challenge to the city's refusal to let him relocate under Emilia-Romagna's 500-metre rule, citing a technical study that found about 170 hectares of the city still open to gambling venues, CityNext reports. On 25 September the regional administrative court for Veneto, in judgment 1844/2026, ordered the municipality of Arzignano and the Interior Ministry to pay €5,000 to a betting-only shop that had been refused a licence under a regional 400-metre rule that applies to gaming machines, Agimeg reports.

At SBC Summit in Lisbon on 30 September, Quirino Mancini of the International Masters of Gaming Law said he could not imagine any government tackling the retail reorganisation in the year before an election, iGaming Business reported. "Wherever there is a vacuum in the legislative power, the judicial one steps in," he said.

At the ACADI forum in Rome on 7 October, Renato Loiero, economic adviser to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, called for technical extensions of the concessions without added fiscal burden and a rebalancing of gambling taxes, Agipronews reported. Mario Lollobrigida, ADM's games director, called the shelved decree "very well done" and said he hoped it would be the starting point for reform at the start of the next legislature. ACADI's sustainability report puts 2025 land-based stakes at €64.5 billion against €100.9 billion online, and argues that regional rules shift demand rather than reduce it.

The Concession Fee Is Now the Real Policy Question

The Treasury's reported plan would run the concessions to the end of 2029 and collect €200 million to €250 million a year. Loiero's call, and Lega deputy Andrea De Bertoldi's statement at the same forum that a fee-paying extension is unacceptable, point the other way. Loiero did not say whether he meant no fees or no increase, and neither position is yet in a budget text. The extension is now the only retail policy the government must decide this year.

Judges Can Strike Down a Rule but Cannot Draw a Map

Courts can test a rule for proportionality, keep a health-based cap and remove a blanket ban, but they cannot decide how many betting shops Italy should have, where they should be or how they should be tendered. Ravenna's operator lost and Arzignano's won under different regional laws, so the same business faces different rules a few hundred kilometres apart. ACADI's hope that rulings could produce national uniformity measures how little the industry now expects from politics.

The online market has 46 licensees on nine-year terms; the land-based network is heading for another extension. Until a new parliament revives the decree, Italy's retail gambling rules will be written one judgment at a time.