A profitable vice: how much the State earns from gambling

Last updated: 14 October 2026

Gambling figures in Italy have grown enormously in recent years.

In 2024, Italians wagered €157.4 billion on slot machines, betting, lotteries and other public games.

In 2024, the regulated public gaming market collected a total of €157.4 billion in stakes, returning €136 billion in winnings (+49% compared with 2019), for actual spending of €21.4 billion, of which €16.3 billion was generated by the land-based channel, with €65.3 billion wagered. These figures represent the relationship between the economic and social value of public gaming on physical networks in Italy, examined by Nomisma in collaboration with Novomatic Italia. Over the last decade, gaming has been one of the main sources of tax revenue, administered by the Customs and Monopolies Agency, accounting for around 13% of total revenue in 2024.

The State has always controlled the gambling sector, collecting substantial sums. From the post-war period until the 1980s, the State held a monopoly on gaming. Only from the 1990s did private operators enter the gambling system, although the State exercises significant control over them through a taxation system that generated around €11.5 billion in revenue for the Italian Republic in 2024.

The Italian taxation system is based on a mixed model that distinguishes land-based gaming from online gaming. For land-based gaming, a charge is applied to each bet, generally ranging between €0.05 and €0.10; online gaming, on the other hand, is subject to a tax based on Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR), with rates between 10% and 20%.

In recent years, the gambling market in Italy has been growing exponentially, driven above all by the introduction of online gaming. Various industry studies predict that the gaming market will continue to grow at a rate of 5% per year until 2030. Let us now examine the figures for recent years. In 2024, the total amount wagered by citizens exceeded €157 billion, 6.5% more than in the previous year, when the figure was around €146 billion. From the perspective of State revenue, the €11.5 billion collected by the Treasury in 2024 is in line with revenue in previous years (2022), as shown in Table 1.

GGR (Gross Gaming Revenue) figures reveal that Italy is the largest gambling market in Europe. Italians’ spending net of winnings in 2023 was €21.5 billion, an increase of 4.38% compared with the previous year.

An analysis of Table 1 clearly reveals two fundamental aspects of the gambling market in Italy. The first concerns the sector’s growth: except for 2020, when the market contracted because of the pandemic, stakes have grown steadily at annual rates of between 10% and 20% in each period examined.

The second striking finding is the gap between the increase in stakes and the increase in tax revenue. Between 2004 and 2024, tax revenue rose by 57.5%, from €7.3 billion to €11.5 billion. Over the same period, stakes increased by 515%, from €25.6 billion to €157 billion.

The disconnect between growth in stakes and the increase in Treasury revenue is due to several factors. On the one hand, taxation has progressively shifted towards the difference between stakes and winnings, reducing the effective tax burden on stakes; on the other, online gaming, which has grown enormously over the last ten years, often benefits from lower rates than land-based gaming, alongside fewer restrictions.

Virtual betting grew by 18.1% during 2024. The end result is that, despite an unprecedented expansion of the virtual betting sector, which grew by 18.1% during 2024, the State collects proportionally much less. This has naturally raised questions about the fairness and fiscal efficiency of a system that, in this way, further encourages online gaming, which carries far greater risks than land-based gaming.

Source: Eurispes analysis of ADM and Pressogiochi data.

In Europe, the gambling market varies considerably according to the type of market and the State’s control over gaming. Countries such as France and the Scandinavian countries adopt a model centred on a State monopoly, in which betting is offered exclusively by government-controlled bodies. This approach ensures direct control over the market: while it provides greater consumer protection, it tends to generate less revenue than more liberalised markets and also limits innovation and competitiveness. This type of market is characterised by a single State operator managing betting, such as Française des Jeux in France and Veikkaus in Finland, a limited offering focused mainly on sports and lotteries, and stricter player-protection measures.

Although State revenue is more secure because the income generated is entirely public, receipts are lower than in other countries because there are fewer players and no competition. One side effect of this model is the risk that a substantial share of players will turn to unauthorised offshore platforms, which lack deposit or spending limits and are often managed by criminal networks.

Another type of market concerns countries such as Germany, Poland, Austria and Switzerland, where markets, although liberalised, have extremely restrictive rules intended to discourage gambling as much as possible. The main features of this model include a limited number of licensed operators, very high taxation for operators that discourages entry into the market, severe advertising restrictions, such as Germany’s ban on offering welcome bonuses to new players, and a series of requirements concerning deposit limits and maximum stakes, intended to reduce the risk of compulsive gambling.

In this context, revenue from gambling is lower and there are fewer active players. However, as in systems managed through a public monopoly, consumers are more likely to turn to offshore platforms to circumvent legislative restrictions.

Table 2 presents gambling figures in Europe, focusing on GGR and State revenue.

*The United Kingdom is also included, although it is not a member of the European Union. All figures are in euros, with Swedish and UK figures converted.

Reflecting on the figures for the continuously growing gambling market, we can understand how every bet placed by citizens also generates a profit for the State. Although this source of income has a significant weight in State revenue, countries need to adopt increasingly strict rules to regulate and, above all, discourage gambling as much as possible, with the sole aim of providing greater protection for citizens.

By Francesca Ricciuti