Italy 2027 budget raises gambling tax on slots and doubles maximum stakes

Italy's 2027 budget bill raises the gambling tax on slot machines and video lottery terminals and doubles the maximum stake per slot game from €1 to €2, according to the certified text now heading to parliament. The same text extends land-based betting, slot, VLT and bingo concessions, due to expire on 31 December 2026, to the end of 2029, iGB reported on Monday.

What changes for machine operators

Under the bill, the PREU levy on slots (AWP) rises from 24% to 25% from 1 January 2027, and on VLTs from 8.6% to 9.6%. Slots paying out at least 70% in prizes would pay a reduced rate of 20%. The maximum prize per game doubles as well, from €100 to €200.

Concession holders face new fees for the extension period. Betting shops pay €14,250 a year per right where gambling is the main business and €8,550 where it is secondary. Slot and VLT network concessionaires pay €150 per slot permit and €7,500 per VLT right. Bingo halls pay monthly fees of between €6,500 and €14,500, linked to each hall's card sales. The Gratta e Vinci scratchcard concession runs to 2029 for €188 million, and Lotto and SuperEnalotto gain an extra weekly draw.

The text also sets up a licensing regime for esports and LAN gaming halls offering skill games without cash prizes. Those venues need ADM authorisation, with fees of €200 per device, €1,000 per hall and €10,000 per online platform, and betting of any kind is banned inside them. A settlement scheme for long-running disputes over a 2015 levy on slot machines is included too.

Where the revenue comes from

Italian Gaming News puts the yield at about €952 million in 2027, more than the €700 million Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced the previous week. The largest items are €334 million from the PREU increase, €281 million from the concession extensions and €188 million from scratchcards. The 2015 levy settlement could add €71.62 million if all parties take part.

The technical report accompanying the bill puts the PREU rise and the concession extensions alone at nearly €2 billion across 2027 to 2029. It assumes slot takings rise by about 30% under the new stake limits, an assumption that will be tested once the new rates apply.

There is no new levy on online gambling in the text and no change to the lottery commission (aggio). That confirms iGB's earlier reporting that retail would carry most of the cost, after earlier suggestions that lotteries and online would contribute instead.

Lottomatica's online record meets a retail estate

Lottomatica, the Milan-listed market leader, said its Italian online market share reached a record 32.4% in September. Across the third quarter the share averaged 31.7%, up 0.9 percentage points year on year, with online sports betting share up 2.1 points to 34.8% and iGaming up 0.6 points to 31.2%, according to SBC News.

Group revenue for the first nine months of 2026 was €1.72 billion, iGB reported, while SBC News put the same figure at €1.71 billion. Bets reached €35.2 billion, an 8% rise, and GGR €3.52 billion, up 2%. Adjusted EBITDA rose 8%, to €665 million by iGB's account of the release and €715 million in SBC News's. Net financial debt stood at €2.16 billion at the end of September. Lottomatica reiterated guidance, expecting adjusted EBITDA at the top end of its €940 million to €980 million range for the year.

The split between channels is the part that matters for the budget measures. Online revenue rose 13% to €780.82 million, while the sports franchise fell 1% to €376.68 million and the gaming franchise fell 2% to €560.28 million. Lottomatica said the sports segment was affected by a higher payout rate to players, and that at a normalised retail payout of 80.5% its sports franchise revenue would have risen 13%.

"The third quarter of 2026 marks another strong quarter for Lottomatica, with double-digit growth in Online and Sports volumes, and in Adjusted EBITDA normalised," chief executive Guglielmo Angelozzi said.

Because Lottomatica runs a large retail estate, the machine levy and concession fees land on it directly. Intermonte estimates concession-related capital expenditure of about €90 million to €100 million a year between 2027 and 2029, and Intermonte and Banca Akros expect the budget measures to have a limited overall effect on the group, SBC News reported. Those estimates rest on a bill that is not yet law.

What happens next

The bill goes first to the Chamber of Deputies, where hearings are expected to start around 5 November and amendments are due by 17 November. Parliament must approve the budget by 31 December.

The land-based sector is already pushing back. Trade association As.Tro has called an extraordinary meeting of its technical committee to assess the impact of the slot and VLT measures, according to Jamma.

At Lottomatica, the next date is 30 November, when shareholders of the company and of Spain's Cirsa vote on their all-share merger. The deal, announced in September, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2027 and is described by iGB as set to create the second-largest listed gaming and sports betting operator in the world. Lottomatica says financing is secured and that integration workstreams are "already fully up and running", with a plan to be ready to execute from the day the deal closes.