Gambling and Usury
Gambling and Mafias: a perfect pair!
For decades, all mafias have taken root in Emilia-Romagna, finding fertile ground for their businesses. Among the most lucrative activities is gambling. From clandestine betting dens to slot machine rentals, from counterfeit lottery tickets to online poker sites, the Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, and Cosa Nostra have perfected their strategies to tightly control the gambling market.
This video documentary explains in three minutes how mafia gambling operations have evolved from the 1980s to today—a plague affecting all of Emilia-Romagna with no signs of abating.
The response of local authorities: Regional Law and Municipal Regulations
Faced with the gambling epidemic, not everyone stands idly by: institutions play an irreplaceable role.
In 2013, the Emilia-Romagna Region approved Regional Law No. 5 (“Rules for Combating, Preventing, and Reducing the Risk of Gambling Addiction and Related Problems and Pathologies”), which provides the framework for combating, preventing, and mitigating gambling addiction. This law, available here, called for a subsequent resolution to clarify and specify certain aspects.
Thus, on June 12, 2017, Regional Resolution No. 831 was approved (download here), outlining the implementation rules for prohibitions on gaming halls and betting shops and the new installation of gambling machines.
One consequence of the resolution is that all municipalities must map gambling-sensitive areas and enforce a ban on opening betting shops and slot machines within 500 meters of such locations.
Implementing the regional law will be highly complex, and each municipality may adopt regulations on the topic, update existing ones, or create synergies with trade associations and other stakeholders.
With this map, we aim to monitor the municipalities that have completed the mapping (download the file with links to published regulations here). The map is currently incomplete, and it will be up to all of us—and you observing the map—to update it (by emailing mafiesottocasa@gmail.com) with the progress of the regional law’s implementation in your municipality.
At the same time, we would like to keep updated and linked the regulations, measures, and examples of good governance implemented by municipalities, so that others may study and draw inspiration from them.
Per esempio, tra i primi comuni dell’Emilia Romagna a tenere conto della deliberazione della Giunta regionale di giugno 2017, c’è il comune di Casalecchio di Reno. Qui c’è la pagina aggiornata con le iniziative, i provvedimenti e i protocolli che il comune ha adottato per limitare il gioco d’azzardo (nelle affissioni sugli spazi comunali, nei luoghi di lavoro, negli esercizi commerciali).
The municipality of Salsomaggiore, the Parma Local Health Authority, and the CGIL, CISL, and UIL trade unions signed a protocol in which, after outlining the connections between gambling, addiction, and organized crime, the local administration committed to approving regulations aligned with the latest regional legislation.
Many other examples of good administrative practices on gambling from Italian municipalities are collected on the Avviso Pubblico website.
The Math Doesn’t Lie: Data Town by Town
Thanks in part to the campaign launched by the website vita.it, data provided by the State Monopoly on gambling revenue—town by town, province by province—has been published.
Because navigating a territory requires maps, not just words. Otherwise, you risk falling into a trap. We need up-to-date economic maps capable of capturing a situation with too many dark sides. We need them to calibrate civic actions, aid, prevention, and effective countermeasures. That’s why the gesture of local administrators requesting this data from the State Monopoly, by registered mail or PEC, was a strong signal. A very strong one. It had an impressive ethical impact.
[…] Meanwhile, the Unified Conference of State and Regions signed an agreement with the government to “reorganize the gambling sales network” in the territories. Building on this momentum, the agreement included a clear point: data on gambling consumption, for each type of “game,” must be provided to all local authorities regularly and precisely.
L’Espresso has made this data available on the website “L’Italia delle slot.” Here, you can discover:
- Annual per capita gambling expenditure in your town
- The number of gambling machines installed in your town
- Your town’s ranking among Italian towns with the highest gambling rates
- How gambling in your town compares to others.
Some towns, however, are still missing. Everyone can contribute by requesting the State Monopoly to make the data public. Click here to learn how in a few simple steps.
L’altra faccia dell’azzardo: l’usura.
Purtroppo, molto spesso al gioco d’azzardo è legato a doppio filo un altro settore di attività della criminalità organizzata: l’usura.
L’Eurispes – Istituto di Studi Politici, Economici e Sociali è un ente privato e opera nel campo della ricerca politica, economica e sociale, dal 1982. Il suo osservatorio sui fenomeni criminali si pone l’obiettivo di fornire materiale conoscitivo, sia attraverso l’elaborazione di dati statistici sia attraverso l’analisi critica delle diverse fenomenologie della devianza.