The Abruzzo regional council has approved a new pathological gambling plan (GAP) incorporating an executive project from Italy’s National Research Council, commissioning CNR’s Clinical Physiology Institute to lead a coordinated programme of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation across the region.
The plan was proposed by Nicoletta Verì, Abruzzo’s Regional Health Assessor, and formally adopted by the Giunta Regionale. It marks the latest renewal of Abruzzo’s regional GAP framework, which has run in successive cycles since 2017 and was most recently extended for 2024.
CNR Takes the Lead on Research and Surveillance
The CNR’s Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica will anchor the research component, with its primary mandate to strengthen Abruzzo’s regional epidemiological observatory on gambling. Planned activities include surveys on gambling habits among the youth population, demand-and-supply analysis of treatment services across the territory, and formal training pathways for operators in the third sector working on gambling-related issues.
The observatory function is central to the strategy. Without accurate data on how gambling disorders are distributed across the region — by age group, geography, and product type — authorities cannot calibrate where prevention and treatment resources are directed. Abruzzo’s approach makes CNR the methodological backbone of that surveillance effort.
“In the last decade, also in Abruzzo, as in the rest of the country, alongside the more well-known forms of consumption and dependency — those relating to psychoactive substances — new risk behaviours have emerged. The most significant is gambling, which has seen a rapid increase and has become, in effect, a public health issue.”
— Nicoletta Verì, Regional Health Assessor, Abruzzo
National Framework Behind the Regional Move
Abruzzo’s plan sits within Italy’s national GAP funding architecture. In June 2025, the Italian Ministry of Health issued a decree allocating €44 million to support prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of gambling disorders across the country. Access to that funding is conditional: regions must demonstrate they have spent a defined percentage of earlier-cycle allocations before new tranches are released — 80% of 2021 funds, 50% of 2022 funds, and 20% of 2023 funds — with comprehensive financial and technical reporting due by 30 March 2026 and accountability extending to 2030.
That conditionality creates a direct operational pressure on regional administrations to maintain structured, documented programmes rather than ad hoc initiatives. Abruzzo’s formal approval of the CNR-IFC project positions the region to draw on that national fund.
The regional plan aligns with the broader direction Italy’s gambling regulator, the Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), has taken at the national level. Under the new online licensing regime that took effect in November 2025, responsible gambling obligations are embedded directly into concession agreements. Licensed operators must allocate 0.2% of gross gaming revenue — capped at €1 million per year — to responsible gambling campaigns, and must comply with enforceable behaviour-based deposit and time-limit requirements under Decree 41/2024.
Abruzzo’s Long-Running Commitment
The region’s engagement with gambling harm dates to at least 2017, when the Giunta first approved a two-year GAP plan and commissioned CNR-Pisa to survey the Abruzzo population on gambling behaviour. The 2022–2023 plan continued that trajectory, and the 2024 plan extended it again. The current approval deepens the CNR relationship and formalises a more structured research function within the regional health system.
“As a Region, we are committed to activating on Abruzzo’s territory the necessary activities in collaboration with all actors involved in the prevention and tackling of gambling and severe addiction — one of the emergencies on which the health system is concentrating its efforts.”
— Nicoletta Verì, Regional Health Assessor, Abruzzo
Verì’s framing of gambling disorder as an emergency for the health system, rather than a peripheral concern, reflects a shift in how Italian regional authorities are increasingly positioning the issue — consistent with ADM’s own move to treat player protection as a measurable compliance requirement rather than a voluntary standard.
Italy’s land-based gambling reform, currently in draft, is expected to reach the Council of Ministers in 2026 and will introduce a national certification system for operators, mandatory distance rules from sensitive locations including schools and addiction treatment centres, and a permanent committee to monitor problem gambling rates. How regional plans like Abruzzo’s will interface with that national architecture remains to be confirmed.
For related coverage, see new online licensing regime with 52 active permits and Italy’s digital firewall against illegal online gambling.
Source: Abruzzo Regional Council (Giunta Regionale)
