ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Stefano Sbordoni, Sbordoni & Partners
Among the applicable regulations is the Dignity Decree (see 3.1 Key Legislation and 9. Advertising ), which contains a total ban on direct or indirect advertising relating to gambling and betting. Therefore, an affiliate may not, for example: • advertise.com or non-authorised sites; • promote bonuses, offers or promo codes; • carry out SEO/SEM (search engine marketing) activities aimed at promoting gaming; • use banners, pop-ups or paid advertising; • engage in influencer marketing; • use social ads (Facebook/Instagram/Google); • carry out indirect promotions (eg, disguised brand awareness); and • insert tracked links redirecting to ADM operators. The advertising ban applies to websites, blogs and information portals, social media, newspapers and magazines, TV/radio, billboards and outdoor adver- tising, email marketing, and SMS (short message ser- vice) marketing. Despite the advertising ban, some “informational con- tent” is permitted, provided that strict conditions are met, such as neutral information and/or regulatory information. The sanctions for affiliates in the event of violation may be imposed by: • AGCOM (administrative fine from EUR50,000 to EUR500,000 charged to the affiliate, immediate removal of the content, and – in serious cases – website blocking); • the ADM (reports for participation in unauthorised gambling activity, in addition to potential criminal liability if the affiliate promotes illegal (.com) sites); • the Financial Guard ( Guardia di Finanza , or GdF) (domain seizure and – in the most serious cases – tax and criminal investigations). 6.4 White Labels White labels are permitted in Italy, but only if: • they operate under an existing ADM licence; • they do not independently collect bets;
• they do not manage gaming accounts, wallets, or payouts; • they do not perform AML/KYC functions; • they are declared by the licensee to the ADM; • they use only ADM-certified software/games; • they are integrated into the ADM/SOGEI systems through the licensee. As a result, white labels can neither obtain their own licence nor, for example, open gaming accounts, man- age sensitive player data, manage deposits, limits or payments, or transmit data directly to SOGEI. Furthermore, the ADM prohibits any white label that resembles an independent B2C operator. 6.5 Technical Measures Italy applies strict technical, administrative and opera- tional measures to protect players and block illegal gambling. These measures are enforced by the ADM and SOGEI, as follows. • Blocking illegal websites – these measures entail: (a) an official blacklist of unauthorised domains updated daily; (b) domain name system (DNS) blocking – access is redirected to an ADM warning page; (c) IP (internet protocol) address and URL (uniform resource locator) blocking for mirrors, subdo- mains and disguised sites; and (d) monitoring of VPN (virtual private network)/ proxy traffic and seizure of illegal servers. • Payment protection – in order to protect players’ payments: (a) payment service providers (PSPs) cannot process payments to illegal operators (severe sanctions apply); (b) banks must block transactions, then report suspicious activity via a suspicious transaction report (STR) ( segnalazione di operazioni sos- pette , or SOS); (c) all payments to ADM operators are fully trace- able via SOGEI; and (d) strong restrictions apply to e-wallets, prepaid cards and vouchers to prevent anonymity. • Consumer protection – these measures entail: (a) national self-exclusion system (RUA) – blocks access across all ADM operators;
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