Italy online gaming reform has cut the number of licences from about 90 to 46, and executives from Microgame, Stake Italy and HBG Online Gaming said on 3 November at SiGMA World in Rome that its first real test comes when new technical rules take effect on 15 February 2027.
The three spoke on the panel “Italy’s New Online Gaming Regime: One Year Later” on the Italy Stage, part of the SiGMA World programme in Rome. The opening day also heard a keynote from investor Tim Draper. Licences in Italy’s online gaming market are awarded by the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM), which publishes the list of online concession holders.
Certification costs before the February deadline
Marco Castaldo, President and CEO of Microgame, called 2026 a transition year and said the full effects of the Italy online gaming reform have yet to show. The €7m licence fee is only part of the bill, he said: complying with the new technical rules and paying for certification adds more, and much of that falls on technology suppliers and game studios.
Suppliers cannot always pass those costs on to operators, Castaldo said. He asked for simpler certification procedures and warned that operators could reach 15 February with only part of their game portfolios approved and live.
Microgame is a B2B technology supplier that also holds an interest in a B2C licensee. It has merged several brands and skins into one operation and kept, then grew, its volumes during the process, Castaldo said, while the wider market has concentrated around the largest groups.
He also criticised the limits on cash transactions. Withdrawal problems faced by some customers could push play towards illegal channels or towards the forms of intermediation the rules were written to stop, Castaldo said.
Fewer licensees, more room to invest
Davide Diodato, Managing Director of HBG Online Gaming, said the move to 46 licensees gave the market stability after years of extensions and transitional arrangements. At Qui Gioco, part of the NOVOMATIC group, that stability has allowed planned spending on technology, staff and product, including more personalised customer experiences, he said.
Online and land-based gaming are going through reform at different speeds, Diodato said, which complicates investment planning for groups active in both channels. He named prediction markets among the new competitors outside Italy’s licensing system and said they could push established operators to rethink where their market ends.
Retail outlets give licensed groups a local presence and direct customer contact that unlicensed websites cannot copy, according to Diodato. He asked policymakers not to treat online and land-based gaming as separate markets and said a stronger retail network could help counter illegal online gambling.
Stake Italy on product and player protection
Fabio Angeli Bufalini, Country Director of Stake Italy, said Italy is a strategic market in the group’s international expansion and one of its most demanding in regulatory terms. A smaller pool of licensees leaves the technical obligations, operating limits and advertising restrictions in place, he said.
“The product is key,” Angeli Bufalini said, adding that user experience decides competition with other licensees and with unregulated platforms.
He backed the mandatory investment in cybersecurity and responsible gaming, and asked for awareness campaigns run jointly by ADM and the Ministry of Health, so that individual operators are not left to communicate on these issues alone. On the infotainment guidelines under discussion, he said licensed operators need room to give consumers accurate information while unregulated platforms keep reaching audiences through social media.
Next steps
The new technical rules take effect on 15 February 2027, the point by which operators need their game portfolios certified. Castaldo said the sector could enter that phase with incomplete portfolios, Diodato said the new framework could benefit parts of the market over time, and Angeli Bufalini said the regulated offer must stay competitive with illegal sites.
Source: SiGMA World
