Who Benefits. Who Pays the Cost. €165.3B Spent Italy’s Gambling Numbers Spark a Bigger Debate
Italians lose more to gambling than anyone else in Europe these days. And increasingly, they’re doing it online.
That’s the headline finding from the fourth Black Book on Gambling, the annual report from CGIL, Federconsumatori and the ISSCON Foundation, presented in late May. The numbers are large enough to reframe how operators should think about Italy’s regulatory direction. Total wagering volume hit a record €165.34bn in 2025, up 5% year on year. To put that in perspective, the report notes it equals 7.3% of national GDP and comfortably exceeds the country’s entire national health fund.
Online Gambling Growth Reshapes the Italian iGaming Market
The figure that matters most for the iGaming sector is the online one. Digital wagering passed €100bn for the first time, landing at €100.88bn, a 9.5% rise in 2024 and a 221% jump since 2018. The report counts roughly 4.8 million active online accounts and flags rising participation among younger players, including under-18s.
For operators, that growth trajectory is a double edged sword. It confirms Italy as one of Europe’s deepest online markets. It also guarantees that customer protection, affordability checks and AML controls will sit at the centre of the next regulatory cycle. When a channel grows this fast, scrutiny follows.
Player Losses and Regional Data Sharpen the Compliance Debate
Net consumer losses reached €21.88bn in 2025, which the authors compare to a full national budget measure. That works out to around 2% of total household income, climbing to 4% in lower income brackets. Average annual spend per adult sat at €3,284.
The regional picture is uneven and, in places, awkward. Among provincial capitals, Isernia topped per capita spend at €6,307. The Sicilian municipality of Patti led all towns for online activity at €7,715 per head. The report goes further, arguing that many of the highest intensity online municipalities overlap with areas previously dissolved for mafia infiltration, and it ties that to renewed demands for transaction traceability and financial transparency.
Operator Profits Become the New Political Target
Here is the part the industry should watch closely. The report claims sector profits have risen 165% in real terms over five years, with aggregate operator turnover hitting €10.4bn in 2025. The argument the three organisations build is blunt: the state loses on net once healthcare, social and judicial costs are counted, while operators win.
That framing is what gives their policy demands weight. They want a blanket advertising ban reinstated, full municipal level data transparency, mandatory social cost reporting, and a windfall tax on what they describe as excess operator profits.
What This Means for Licensed Operators and CMOs
None of this is law yet. But you can see where it’s heading, and Italy has done this before with the Dignity Decree back in 2018. Marketing teams planning Italian acquisition campaigns should assume tighter advertising rules, heavier reporting obligations and a tax conversation that targets profitability directly rather than turnover.
The lesson for anyone operating in this market is uncomfortable but useful. The faster online grows, the harder the political case for restriction becomes to ignore.
Source: Federconsumatori
