Italian austerity drive forces AAMS to merge with Customs Authority
The Customs and Monopolies Agency will be formed under the control of the current head of Customs Authority.
The Italian egaming regulator L’Amministrazione autonoma dei monopoli di Stato (AAMS) is to be merged with the country’s L’Agenzia delle Dogane (Customs Authority) as Mario Monti’s government seeks to cut costs in order to boost Italy’s ailing economy.
The move will see a newly-formed entity entitled the Customs and Monopolies Agency take responsibility for regulating Italy’s land-based and online gambling markets, as well as control of the production, distribution and sale of tobacco products in the country, both formerly overseen independently by AAMS.
The decision to merge the two authorities is understood to be behind the departure of AAMS director general Raffaele Ferrara earlier this month. Ferrara is expected to be reassigned to a different department in the country’s Ministry of Finance, with head of the Customs Authority Giuseppe Peleggi to take charge of the Customs and Monopolies Agency. A new deputy director-general is to be appointed to oversee gaming and tobacco directly, but no official announcements have been made so far.
A senior source within AAMS denied a report this morning suggesting the regulator would be “abolished”, telling eGaming Review that “the current organisation [of AAMS] should not change at all” with no more senior staff set to depart.
This view was supported by Giulio Coraggio, senior associate at DLA Piper, who explained: “My view is that nothing will change, but we can now better understand the reason why Ferrara left AAMS since his role will not exist anymore because there will be a sole chairman of the Customs Agency.”
Since taking responsibility for gambling and games of chance in 2002 AAMS has overseen the opening of Italy’s online gambling industry, with the market quickly becoming the largest in Europe. Earlier this month the licensing process for online slot games was opened, with operators able to offer slots from December this year “ a move which analyst Fabio Pavan of Mediobanca believes will allow amounts wagered to “easily exceed” 12bn by the end of the year.
However, the introduction of cash poker and casino in 2011 has cannibalised revenues for the country’s horse racing and sports betting sectors, which have both seen rapid declines this year. The horse racing industry was further affected by the austerity government cutting funding to the sector, which resulted in a widespread strike earlier this year, almost halving Italian bookmakers’ revenues.