Gambling in Italy: volumes growing by 72% in ten years

«Gambling in Italy has grown by 72% in ten years and the current trajectory leads us to exceed, between 2028 and 2029, the threshold of 200 billion euros gambled». The alarm comes from the study «Not so small. Gamble, one more problem for small Italian municipalities", promoted by the Isscon Foundation (Institute for consumer studies), Federconsumatori and CGIL (General Italian Labor Confederation). In its third edition, the 2026 report observes "systematically" the extent of gambling in Italian municipalities between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants.

The survey involves a total of 3146 countries, i.e. 40% of Italian municipalities, where almost a quarter of the population lives. Here, in 2025 «34.7 billion euros were played between physical and online games, with 4.6 billion euros in losses». Furthermore, in 113 small municipalities online gaming per capita exceeds "at least double the national average".

It is above all online gambling that is of concern, a business that last year recorded growth of 9.5% in twelve months and generated earnings of over 100 billion euros, out of a total of 165.34 billion.

The study also highlights how in some municipalities there are "variations of tens of millions of euros from one year to the next, with volumes that appear or disappear suddenly".

The gambling map

Although the geography of the phenomenon is "changeable and difficult to explain", as it involves controls and transparency, it involves the whole of Italy. «And it shows that we are not faced with a problem just affecting large cities, nor with a phenomenon confined to the most economically fragile or richest areas».