Italy’s government has effectively banned all gambling advertisements in the country including any sponsorship branding on sports teams.
Italy’s Council of Ministers—acting after the country’s Parliament delegated the matter—adopted the rules which will go into effect in January.
The decree reads: “any form [of gambling advertising] even indirect … is prohibited; however carried out and on any means, including sporting, cultural or artistic events, television or radio broadcasts, daily and periodical press, general publications, billboards and internet”.
The legislation is designed to fight gambling addiction by reducing exposure of vulnerable players to gambling, government officials said. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio has pushed for the rule and said he wants to lobby before the European Union for a ban across all member nations.
Analysts said the ban will obviously hurt Italian soccer franchises, most of which have some form of sponsorship from gambling companies. Italy’s gambling sector invests about €120m per year in sponsoring Italian sports teams. A last-minute amendment to the law, however, will allow clubs to fulfill their current contracts with sponsors through June 30 2019.
Italy’s Serie A football league issued a statement opposing the legislation.
“It would cause competitive disadvantages to the Italian clubs and our teams advertising budget would be redirected abroad,” the statement said. “In the 2017-18 season, twelve Serie A clubs have signed a partnership contract with companies of the betting industry, considered the 5th field for investments in the rank of the t-shirt sponsorship in the 6 main European tournaments”
The rules could also impact the money teams receive from broadcasts of games as gambling companies are a significant buyer of ads during telecasts.
The new rules would carry penalties of a minimum fine of €50,000 or 5 percent of the value of the advertisement or sponsorship. The fines will be donated to a fund treating gambling addiction. It’s unclear which entities would be liable for the fines—the teams, the gambling company or the media platform that runs the ads, according to local reports.
In another story, Google has moved to remove gambling-related content/services from being indexed on its Italian search results. The move was made in anticipation of Italy’s gambling advertisement ban.
The company said in a stockholder’s report, that only state lotteries with deferred drawing will be allowed to run gambling advertisements in Italy.
Google is the first international firm to adhere to the changes, but other tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter are expected to also make changes in their policies regarding Italy.
