What exactly article 9 of the Dignity Decree prohibits, and what remains permitted

This page is the only one on the site that does not read a gaming contract: it reads the text of article 9 of decree-law no. 87 of 12 July 2018, converted with amendments by law no. 96 of 9 August 2018, and the implementing guidelines adopted by AGCOM in resolution no. 132/19/CONS of 18 April 2019. The method is the same one used elsewhere: cite the primary sources, without opening an account, without depositing, without playing. The two halves of the page carry equal weight: what the ban covers, and what the same resolution leaves out.

What exactly does paragraph 1 forbid?

From the day the decree came into force, "any form of advertising, including indirect advertising, relating to games or bets with cash prizes and to gambling, however carried out and on any medium" is prohibited. Paragraph 1 lists the media one by one: sporting, cultural or artistic events, television or radio broadcasts, daily and periodical press, publications in general, billboards, computer, digital and telematic channels, including social media.

The ban concerns advertising, not the gaming contract: what the contracts say about verification is in identity verification, and on withdrawal caps in withdrawals and limits. The full comparison is in crypto casinos in Italy.

From 1 January 2019 the ban extends to the sponsorship of events, activities, shows, programmes, products or services "and to all other forms of communication with promotional content, including visual and acoustic mentions and the superimposition of the name, brand, symbols, activities or products". The exclusions written into the paragraph are three and only three: the national deferred-draw lotteries referred to in article 21, paragraph 6, of decree-law no. 78 of 1 July 2009; the local games of chance referred to in article 13 of presidential decree no. 430 of 26 October 2001; the safe and responsible gaming logos of the Customs and Monopolies Agency.

Who pays the penalty and who imposes it?

Paragraph 2 establishes an administrative financial penalty equal to 20 per cent of the value of the sponsorship or the advertising, and in any case not less than 50,000 euro for each violation. The addressees are three distinct parties: the commissioning party, the owner of the medium or of the site of distribution or destination, and the organiser of the show, event or activity. The site owner therefore appears in the rule as a party liable to the penalty, not as a mere vehicle.

The authority competent to bring and impose the charge is the Communications Regulatory Authority, as paragraph 3 states. The proceeds of the penalties are reassigned to the Ministry of Health and allocated to the fund for combating pathological gambling, under paragraph 4. Paragraph 5 is transitional in scope: advertising contracts being performed on the date the decree came into force remained subject to the previous rules until expiry and in any case for no more than a year.

Paragraph 1-bis introduces a definition that concerns the language of public communications: in laws, in regulatory acts and in communications on any medium, disorders related to games or bets with money winnings are defined as «gambling disorders (DGA)».

What criterion does the decision use to distinguish advertising from description?

Decision 132/19/CONS distinguishes advertising from merely descriptive communication. The criterion is textual: communications that keep «an exclusively descriptive, informative and identifying purpose regarding the legal gaming offer, serving to allow an informed gaming choice» are to be considered excluded from the ban. To establish whether a message is informative or promotional, the Authority indicates two decisive elements: the way the message is packaged — language, graphic or acoustic elements, context of distribution — and the context in which the service is offered.

The same resolution adds a presumption that reverses the advantage: a communication with informative content about the gaming service, made in a context other than the one in which the service is offered, is presumed promotional and therefore prohibited, because the consumer could be "caught off guard" by the so-called surprise effect. The user’s consent does not work as a defence: the fact that the user has agreed to receive promotional communications, has registered on the site or has visited the physical gaming venue cannot have exculpatory effect, not least because they could be a compulsive player. And casinos are not excluded as a block from the personal scope of the ban merely because they are subject to public supervision and control.

What does the decision leave outside the ban?

The decision identifies five clear-cut cases that remain outside the ban. The first: corporate social responsibility campaigns and communications, also because the concessions themselves often make them mandatory. The second: any form of B2B communication, including promotional, trade fairs intended for operators only and communications, including promotional, in the specialist B2B press. The third: the free algorithmic indexing services provided by search engines or marketplaces, because the ranking appears after the consumer has already entered the query and therefore does not anticipate or stimulate the choice.

The fourth case concerns the mention of the concession holder as the funder of a project: the mere mention stays outside, while communications that amount to actual sponsorships fall within the ban. The fifth: information released by the operator at the customer’s request about the functioning and the features of the service, if strictly relevant to what was asked. The use of a trademark that also identifies activities other than gaming is allowed only if there is no ambiguity about the object of the promotion and no element evoking gaming appears, with the exception of the mere name of the provider. On territorial jurisdiction the decision rejects the criterion of the location of the server and reasons on the message being aimed at the Italian public.

What does it mean for a page like this one?

The documentary register of this site derives directly from the criterion of the decision. If communication with «an exclusively descriptive, informative and identifying purpose regarding the legal gaming offer» is what the rule leaves alone, a comparison page that wants to stay descriptive cannot contain invitations to sign up, bonuses, preference rankings, scores, urgency or links to the operators’ sites. The names of the brands appear only so that the number of the clause being quoted can be indicated. The classification of a single message is for the Authority and, ultimately, for the judge.

The site applies this criterion by reading the contracts and the licence registers. Of 100 brands examined, 68 publish a licence number and the public registers make it possible to verify the correspondence; the reading of the terms produced 49 identity verification clauses readable, 38 lists of excluded countries and 14 declared withdrawal caps. None of the one hundred declares an ADM concession. These numbers are not proof of anything: they are the point where the documentary reading stops.

I published licence numbers are 68 out of 100: a figure that describes what the documents say, not what the law allows or forbids to those who publish them.

Why do no invitations, bonuses or rankings appear on this site?

The resolution presumes promotional, and therefore prohibited, informative communication distributed in a context other than the one in which the service is offered. A page that invited you to sign up, that launched an offer or that ranked the brands by preference would produce exactly the surprise effect the presumption seeks to avoid. This site does not want to produce that effect. That is why there are no invitations, no bonuses, no rankings.

The choice is not precautionary: it is documentary. A comparison that limits itself to quoting the clauses of the contracts and the data of the public registers belongs to the descriptive register that the decision indicates as excluded from the ban. Whether this actual page falls within that register or not is not an assessment the site can make about itself: the rule entrusts that assessment to the Authority and, ultimately, to the judge.