Italy Gambling License

What is an Italian gambling license?

An Italian gambling license is a concession (concessione) granted by the Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) to offer public games in Italy. ADM awards concessions through a public tender, not on application. Italy has regulated online gambling since 2006 under the Bersani Decree and rebuilt the online regime in 2024 under Legislative Decree No. 41/2024.

The distinction between a license and a concession decides how the whole market works. A gambling license, in most jurisdictions, is a permit any qualifying applicant can request at any time. A concessione is a contract with the Italian state: ADM defines how many concessions exist, opens a tender, scores the bids, and signs with the winners. Between tenders there is nothing to apply for.

This page uses "license" because that is the term operators search for. The legal instrument in Italy is the concession, and every fact below describes the concession regime under Legislative Decree No. 41/2024.

Can you still apply for an Italian gambling license in 2026?

No. There is no open application window for Italian online gambling concessions in 2026. ADM announced the tender on 17 December 2024, closed bids on 30 May 2025, admitted 46 operators to the second stage on 17 September 2025, and applied the new regime from 13 November 2025. The concessions run nine years without renewal.

Any offer of a "new Italian online gambling license" outside an ADM tender is not real. The pool of 52 concessions is fixed until ADM runs the next tender, and on the last cycle ADM announced that tender about a year before the incumbent concessions expired.

Four routes into the Italian market remain open:

• Acquire an existing concessionaire. Buying a current concession holder, or a controlling stake in one, is the main entry route. ADM must approve ownership changes.

• Supply concessionaires as a B2B provider. Suppliers with ADM-certified game content and platforms can sell to the 46 license holders.

• Bid in the separate land-based tender. Italy is preparing a retail tender for betting shops and gaming machines, expected in 2026.

• Wait for the next online tender. The current concessions expire in November 2034, and the next tender is expected before that date. No round has been announced yet.

Who regulates gambling in Italy?

The Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), Italy's Customs and Monopolies Agency, regulates all gambling in Italy through its Gaming Directorate (Direzione Giochi). ADM operates under the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), awards concessions by tender, supervises license holders, and applies sanctions. Its website is adm.gov.it.

Several other bodies sit around ADM, and telling them apart matters when reading Italian sources:

• MEF, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, sets the fiscal parameters: tax rates, fee levels, budget-law changes.

• UIF (Unità di Informazione Finanziaria), the financial intelligence unit at the Bank of Italy, receives suspicious-transaction reports from concessionaires.

• Sogei, the state IT operator, runs the systems through which player accounts and gaming data are verified.

• AGCOM, the communications authority, enforces the advertising ban.

Older sources still name AAMS (Amministrazione Autonoma dei Monopoli di Stato) as the Italian regulator. AAMS was absorbed into ADM in 2012; the two names refer to the same authority, and "AAMS license" in older articles means an ADM concession today.

What changed under Legislative Decree 41/2024?

Legislative Decree No. 41/2024 rebuilt Italy's online gambling regime: one nine-year concession per website, a EUR 7m entry fee, a cap of five concessions per corporate group, and the end of the multi-skin model. The decree was adopted on 25 March 2024 under the delegation in Law No. 111/2023 and published on 3 April 2024.

The reform ran on a fixed timeline:

The structural changes reach further than the timeline. The single remote concession bundles all online verticals and replaces the old per-vertical skins. Each concession covers exactly one .it website, and a group may hold at most five concessions. The market contracted from roughly 407 sites to 52 concessions. Concessionaires must keep a registered office or branch in Italy and host infrastructure in Italy or the EEA with real-time ADM access. Gaming data stays available for six months in live systems plus five years in archive.

One forward-looking detail: Decree 41/2024 explicitly covers games offered in virtual and digital environments, including metaverse-type settings, once secondary regulation defines them.

How much does an Italian gambling license cost?

An Italian online gambling concession costs EUR 7,000,000, paid in two installments: EUR 4 million when ADM awards the concession and EUR 3 million when the service launches. Launch must follow within six months of the award. Recurring charges then apply for the full nine-year term.

The EUR 7m fee is charged per concession, not per operator. A group wanting several brands needs several concessions, up to the cap of five, at EUR 7m each. That is how 52 concessions ended up with 46 operators: some groups bought more than one. Sources describe the fee base differently (DLA Piper writes "per vertical", CMS "per licence"); the operative unit in the decree is the concession, each tied to one website.

The sticker price is not the real cost of entry today. With the tender closed, entering Italy means buying an incumbent concessionaire at market price, typically a multiple of EBITDA well above EUR 7m.

What are the requirements for an Italian gambling concession?

An Italian gambling concession requires an EU or EEA operator selected through an ADM tender, a registered office or branch in Italy, certified gaming systems, and clearance under Italy's Anti-Mafia Code. The requirements below applied in the 2024-25 round and set the baseline for any future tender.

• Corporate form: joint-stock company with a registered office in the EU or EEA

• Registered office or branch in Italy

• Infrastructure hosted in Italy or the EEA, with real-time data access for ADM

• Integrity clearance under Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, the Anti-Mafia Code, for the company and its owners

• A bank or insurance guarantee (garanzia fideiussoria) of at least EUR 1.5 million, as set in the tender call, with capital strength assessed against the indicators in ADM's Regole Amministrative

• Certification of games and platform against ADM's updated technical rules, including RNG and RTP testing by accredited labs

• AML and KYC procedures under Legislative Decree No. 231/2007, with suspicious-transaction reporting to the UIF

• Player identity verification through SPID and checks against Sogei systems

• Connection to the RUA, Italy's central self-exclusion register

• Staff training to recognize problem gambling

• A domain in the .it zone displaying the ADM logo

After an award, the winner files the complete documentation package within 35 days of publication of the decision.

The anti-mafia screening deserves emphasis because it has no equivalent in most licensing jurisdictions: ADM examines beneficial owners, directors, and connected parties against organized-crime databases before any concession is signed. The same screening applies when a concessionaire is acquired.

Which gambling verticals does the Italian concession cover?

The Italian online gaming concession covers all remote verticals in a single instrument under Legislative Decree No. 41/2024: sports and horse-race betting, virtual events, online casino, poker, bingo, and skill games. One concession authorizes the full product range on one .it website.

The verticals named in the decree:

• Fixed-odds and pool betting on sports events, including horse racing

• Betting on virtual events

• Online casino games

• Online bingo

• Poker, both tournament and cash formats

• Skill games

• Betting exchanges, where players bet against each other

• Games in virtual or digital environments, including metaverse settings, once regulated by secondary rules

One product-level constraint matters for poker operators: Italian online poker runs on ring-fenced liquidity. Player pools are national, with no shared liquidity with other jurisdictions, which limits tournament sizes and cash-game depth compared with dot-com poker.

How are Italian gambling operators taxed?

Italian online gambling operators pay 24.5% of GGR on sports and virtual-event betting and 25.5% of GGR on online casino, poker, and bingo. The 2025 Budget Law raised both rates from 24% and 25%. GGR means stakes minus winnings paid back to players, and bonuses generally count inside the taxable base.

On top of gaming tax, a concessionaire pays the 3% annual concession fee calculated on GGR net of gaming tax. Responsible gambling campaigns take at least another 0.2% of GGR, capped at EUR 1m per year. Corporate profit is then taxed under IRES at 24%, plus regional IRAP of roughly 3.9%. Gambling itself is VAT-exempt in Italy.

The combined public take on online GGR lands around 27 to 28% before corporate tax. Margins in Italy depend on scale, which is one reason the reform consolidated the market into fewer, larger holders.

Players pay nothing: winnings from ADM-licensed operators are not taxed in the player's hands. The entire fiscal burden sits on the concessionaire.

What player protection and advertising rules apply in Italy?

Italy bans gambling advertising almost entirely and enforces player protection through state-run systems rather than operator policy. The Dignity Decree of 2018 prohibits any form of gambling advertising and sponsorship, and the RUA self-exclusion register blocks excluded players automatically at every licensed operator.

• Advertising. The Dignity Decree (DL 87/2018) bans direct and indirect gambling advertising across all media, including social platforms, and gambling sponsorship has been banned since 1 January 2019. AGCOM enforces the ban with fines of 20% of the ad or sponsorship value, minimum EUR 50,000 per violation, and has fined platforms and affiliates, not only operators. Player acquisition in Italy runs on organic and indirect channels, and any marketing model built on paid media does not transfer.

• Self-exclusion. The RUA (Registro Unico degli Autoesclusi) is ADM's central register. Every login attempt is checked against the RUA automatically. Until 31 January 2026 only full self-exclusion was available; since 1 February 2026 players can also self-exclude for segmented periods from 7 to 270 days, or indefinitely.

• Limits and alerts. Deposit, spend, and session limits apply, tied to player age and behavior, with stricter caps for players aged 18 to 24 and pop-up reminders on session length and spending.

• Identity. Full KYC comes before play: an identity document at account activation, verification through Sogei systems, and SPID as the standard route.

• Payments. Top-ups through PVR voucher points of sale are capped at EUR 100 per week. Payment methods must be traceable and tied to the verified account holder; crypto-assets work only through approved traceable channels, which in practice excludes anonymous crypto payments.

• AML. Concessionaires report suspicious transactions to the UIF and payment flows are monitored jointly with the Bank of Italy. Customer identification is mandatory on any win of EUR 2,000 or more.

What is the 2026 land-based gambling tender in Italy?

Italy is preparing a separate tender for its land-based gambling segment, with expected investment above EUR 1.5 billion. Unlike the closed online round, the retail tender has not happened yet, which makes it the one Italian licensing window a new entrant can still plan for.

The expected parameters, as reported by DLA Piper and GamingTechLaw in March 2026:

• Around 10,000 betting points packaged into 200 lots of roughly 50 shops each, with an estimated base value near EUR 280 million for the betting segment

• Gaming machines, around 200,000 AWPs and 46,000 VLTs, reorganized into 50 lots of roughly 4,000 AWPs and 920 VLTs each, with expected total value up to EUR 1.25 billion

• Concentration caps under discussion: 25% per company and 35% per group

• Municipal distance rules (distanziometri) stay in force; industry estimates suggest 15% to 40% of existing points may need to relocate or close

Every figure above describes draft tender conditions, not rules in force. The reform has already slipped from late 2025 to mid-2026, and the implementing decree was still pending as of August 2026. Treat the parameters as expected terms with a March 2026 source date and re-confirm before committing capital.

How can an operator enter the Italian market now?

An operator can enter the Italian market in 2026 through four routes: acquiring an existing concessionaire, supplying license holders as a certified B2B provider, bidding in the upcoming land-based tender, or preparing for the next online round. Applying for a fresh online concession is not among the options.

• M&A: buy a concessionaire or a controlling stake. This is the main path after the tender closed. Ownership changes require ADM approval and trigger anti-mafia screening under the Anti-Mafia Code. Pricing follows the target's business, not the EUR 7m tender fee.

• B2B: supply the 46 license holders. Game studios, platform providers, and sportsbook engines can sell into Italy without holding a concession. The products must meet ADM's technical standards, pass RNG and RTP certification, and clear each concessionaire's supplier due diligence. MGL supports this route through its Casino Games Integration, Sportsbook Integration, and Aggregator services.

• Land-based tender 2026. If the published parameters hold, the retail round opens a genuine licensing window, in a capital-heavy, physically regulated segment.

• Wait for the next online cycle. Concessions run nine years without renewal, so a future tender is structurally guaranteed, just not soon.

The route that no longer exists is the skin: running a brand under someone else's concession. Decree 41/2024 abolished the multi-skin model, and one concession now means one website. Serving Italian players without an ADM concession is not an alternative either: ADM blocks unlicensed sites by administrative order and has blacklisted more than 12,000 domains.

What are the drawbacks of the Italian gambling regime?

Italy combines a closed licensing window with some of the heaviest operating conditions in regulated Europe. The market's size explains why operators accept the terms; the terms still need to be priced in before any entry decision.

• No application route: the online window closed on 30 May 2025 and entry now runs through M&A

• Entry threshold of EUR 7m per concession, plus bank guarantees and locked share capital

• Combined fiscal load: 24.5-25.5% GGR gaming tax, the 3% annual fee, the 0.2% responsible gambling levy, and IRES on top

• An advertising ban under the Dignity Decree that makes player acquisition structurally expensive

• One brand and one domain per concession; multi-brand strategy means buying more concessions

• Mandatory presence in Italy and infrastructure in Italy or the EEA

• Ring-fenced poker liquidity, with no international player pools

• A nine-year, non-renewable term: the whole business cycle is planned against a fixed end date

One misconception is worth killing directly: an Italian concession gives no access to other EU markets, and no EU or EEA license gives access to Italy. Each EEA state licenses its own market, and Italy is the clearest example of that principle, closed even to operators licensed elsewhere in the EU.

Why choose MGL for the Italian gambling license

MGL advises on the routes into Italy that actually exist, rather than promising a license that cannot currently be obtained. With 300+ licenses obtained across jurisdictions, MGL's work on Italy focuses on deal support, B2B readiness, and tender preparation under ADM's rules.

• Assessment of M&A targets among current concessionaires and deal structuring that anticipates ADM approval and anti-mafia screening

• Preparation of B2B suppliers for ADM technical standards, certification, and concessionaire due diligence

• Monitoring of the 2026 land-based tender and bid readiness as parameters are confirmed

• Preparation for the next online concession cycle, from corporate structure to documentation