Italy’s Cabinet approves 2027 budget with €700m contribution from gambling

The Prime Minister confirmed the figure after Cabinet approved the bill, but how operators will pay remains unclear until the text is published.

Italy’s gambling sector will contribute €700 million to the government’s 2027 budget, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on 28 October after her Cabinet approved the bill. The measures that will raise the money are still unknown, because the text has not been published yet.

What the government has confirmed

The Council of Ministers approved the draft budget law for 2027 and the multi-year budget for 2027–2029 on Wednesday, according to the official Cabinet communiqué. The package is worth about €26 billion in 2027 and €27 billion in 2028.

According to the communiqué, the budget is funded mainly through the EU escape clauses and through higher revenue from the financial, gaming, and energy sectors. Ministries have also been asked to cut spending.

Meloni gave the gambling figure at the press conference after the meeting. She listed the sector next to a new contribution from energy companies, which she put at about €700 million. ‘Another €700 million comes from the gaming sector,’ she said, according to the government transcript (translated from Italian).

The figure matches the draft budgetary plan sent to Brussels in mid-October. That plan put gaming measures at 0.03% of GDP in 2027 and 2028 and 0.02% in 2029. That is roughly €700 million a year for the first two years and about €480 million in the third. Neither the plan nor the communiqué says which products or taxes will be affected.

What Italian media have reported

Il Sole 24 Ore reported on 29 October that the government wants more than €900 million a year from the sector over 2027–2029, above the figure Meloni announced. 

According to the paper, much of that would come from two measures in the budget bill: a one-point rise in PREU, Italy’s levy on gaming machine stakes, for slots and VLTs, and three-year extensions of machine, betting and bingo concessions on much costlier terms. The extensions would also cover the concession for Gratta e Vinci, Italy’s national scratchcard lottery. 

An earlier report by Milano Finanza, published the day before Cabinet met, pointed instead to the lottery aggio, the commission on lottery sales, and to online gaming. The government has not yet published the bill or confirmed any of these measures.

Retail concessions run out this year

Licences for gaming machine networks, retail betting, and bingo expire on 31 December 2026. The 2025 budget law extended them for two years in exchange for fees. Press reports point to another paid extension, this time at a higher cost.

Before the Cabinet meeting, a think tank warned against further tax rises on the sector. Dario Peirone, director general of the Istituto Milton Friedman, said in a statement on 22 October (translated from Italian):

‘A further tax increase would bring about the final collapse of land-based gaming, already stifled by unsustainable bureaucratic and tax pressure.’

Peirone also said any further extensions of gaming machine concessions should carry no extra charges.

What happens next

The bill now goes to Parliament, which is expected to approve it by the end of the year. Lawmakers can amend it, so the gaming measures may still change. Operators will only know where the €700 million will come from once the text is published.

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