LOGiCO praises AGCOM common sense on betting sponsorships

Italian online gambling trade body LOGiCO has praised, Italy’s communications agency AGCOM for implementing a common sense approach in its judgement of betting sponsorship restrictions imposed by the Lega-5Star coalition government’s Dignity Decree.

Last week AGCOM supported Serie A governance in its appeal to clarify betting sponsorship restrictions which were set to be implemented from 1 January 2019.

In its review of commercial contracts, AGCOM judged that Lega-5Star’s directives on betting sponsorship had been incomplete for mandating deals secured as the coalition’s Decree was established.

Italy’s communication agency has stated that contracts should be honoured for the remaining Italian 2018/19 football season.

AGCOM’s decision will allow Serie A sides SS Lazio, Torino and Chievo to complete their respective shirt sponsorship deals with Marathonbet, SportPesa and Eurobet.

Following a disruptive 2018 for all Italian online gambling stakeholders, adjusting to tougher operational and advertising conditions imposed by the coalition government, Moreno Marasco, Chairman of LOGiCO praised AGCOM’s judgement.

“We expected AGCOM to eventually apply common sense over a flawed enforcement of a law issued only with a political consensus in mind, proving that there was little or no reasoning behind.” Marasco details

As in previous statements leading LOGiCO, Marasco details that the trade body will push for a much needed revamp of Italian advertising frameworks for gambling, fulfilling the social responsibility provisions demanded by wider stakeholders.

“This is however only a first step: the whole industry shall consistently keep applying the basic self-discipline rules published on our website, in addition to IAP’s Code”.

“Sensible and responsible advertising is still feasible, with confidence that the right of information of Concessionaires, representing the legal industry, shall prevail over a measure certainly aimed to curb gambling addiction, but which – as demonstrated by the research of the National Health Institute – develops predominantly on the only industry segment that does not advertise: machine gambling, by far the largest chunk of revenues of the whole gambling industry: approximately 50% Vs. online totalling 7% on all products”.