While the Courts re -emerge, as happens uncertain, the question of bets in football, it would almost be natural to be tempted to make morals to boys, privileged for salary and visibility, which squandered the fortune of their talents in the illegal azard, but it would be to look at the tip of an inverted iceberg.
The players who let themselves be attempted to bets on illegal sites are in fact the submerged tip of the huge iceberg of a company founded worldwide on the azzard and bets in the light of the sun.
“Only between 2006 and 2023 the collection of betting on football competitions increased by more than 7 times, going from 2.1 to 14.8 billion euros, (with a tax revenue of 371.4 million euros, while the second sport, or tennis, does not exceed 3.6 billion euros of collection and 93.3 million revenue). The men’s football Serie A in 2023 produced a collection in Italy equal to almost 2.8 billion euros (only in 2012 did it not exceed 807.1 million), while the estimated worldwide touched 34.6 billion euros, played largely in Asia and Europe “.
All this is not read in who knows what an investigation taken from the confidences of deep gorges, but in the most transparent and official photograph of the football economy: the annual football report 2024 published by the Italian Football Federation.
A world question
Indeed, it is not an Italian fact, it is football as a world company that lives a lot of legal, very legal bets: “Considering the sports betting sector” reads the report, “with an annual collection of 735 billion euros, football instead affects over 50% of the movement produced worldwidein front of basketball (193 billion) and tennis (179 billion) ». Obviously all this represents a potential risk for the regularity of the matches, including the temptation to sell them and buy them, obviously illegally: “Sport, a leading company worldwide for services aimed at protecting the integrity of competitions, has developed IA -based software to increase quality in the identification of anomalous flows on sports competitions; In only 2023 850,000 sporting events were analyzed in 70 different disciplines ».
The situation in Italy
«In 2022-2023 it is estimated that the overall collection from sports betting made by the Italians was equal to almost 20 billion euros. The share relating to betting on football was over 14 billion, consisting of 23% from physical collection in the agency (3,290 million) and 77% of online collection (10,750 million). However, only a minority share of the over 14 billion of collection of collection on football betting actually contributes to generating socio -economic impacts in the Italian territory. (…) Overall, direct, indirect and induced, it is therefore estimated that the sports betting on football made by the Italians contribute to generating 1,584 million impact on GDP, and and supporting 13,778 per year in Italy. A relevant share of the overall economic impact is represented by approximately 520 million of direct, indirect and induced tax revenue, of which 380 million refer to the estimate of the single tax on sports betting fixed altitude, paid directly by the betting companies, whose tax base consists of the difference between collection and winnings, that is, from spending ». In short, they earn football and the tax authorities, but enormously more betting agencies, because it almost always wins the counter.
The weight of the “Betting” in sponsorships
Among the 237 sponsors of shirt in the 10 main European alloys, the “Betting” or the betting sector is the first item with 18% the global Betting market, according to Sportdar, is estimated at almost 1,500 billion euros in 2023, of which over 50% relatively only to football. “The marketing of betting rights”, explains the report, “represents a source of revenue increasingly growing for sports organizations, especially in a phase of saturation of the growth of media rights”. Each of the 5 European Chalcistic Top League has more than doubled its revenues deriving from the betting rights: “In the latest agreements (the total value of Premier League, Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 went from 66.1 million dollars of 2019-2020 to 164.5 in 2024-2025)”.
According to reports 2024, 131 title sponsors from Betting, of which 67 in England, Germany, France and Spain are 0 are 0 because in Italy due to the dignity decree since 2018 it is forbidden to advertise and also bring legal betting agencies to the shirts. The title sponsors are those who do not just represent the main sponsor, but contribute to giving the name to a team (as happens in Italy for basketball or volleyball), to a sporting event (this is the case, for example, of the international tennis of Italy that have the name of a bank) or a sports facility. Total 3% of the sponsorships of the top 10 top league except Italy comes from Betting, the highest value has the Russian championship with 9%. In Europe and Latin America it is Betting the most represented product sector of title sponsor respectively 30% and 50% respectively.
Italy has more rigid rules but are easily wandered
The rules that also prohibit the direct commercial bond between sports and betting agencies in Italy are easily around: just replace the sites of the legal betting agencies with sporting “news” sites that are called “bet” or “win” somethingwhich evoke bets without giving you direct access, and games are made. Thus explain: the sponsor of Inter, the advertisement of Luca Toni, the many references to the statistics of these sites to which the sports broadcasts and the countless relative commercials that interrupt the matches refer.
If the site shows itself as an “information” site and alludes to legal bets but does not deflect there directly, even if it is in fact aimed without telling it, which whoever goes to us knows very well, respects the “dignity decree” in the form wandering the substance. The mechanism is the same as when the commercials are put immediately after and immediately before the acronyms to circumvent the ban on interrupting the episodes of the cartoons intended for children with advertising of any kind.
Good advice and bad example
In all this, in the report on football 2024 we also speak of theActivities to protect competitions and the fight against match-Fixing or to combined matches: “represents”, reads, “one of the cornerstones of the FIGC regulatory system and federal action, and is carried out also thanks to a specific collaboration with Sportdarwhich materializes with the analysis of betting trend, the evaluation of any anomalies and the development of a significant training and awareness of the risks of betting and on the regulation on the subject “. There is talk of dozens of courses that involved thousands of players between professional and youth players.
Praised initiatives, which in a context in which you live in fact surrounded, if not immersed, in continuous references to bets and gambling they know so much, with all goodwill, of transparent fig leaf.
Especially since not even institutional consistency is always shown: even if you have been doubting when In 2023 he called himself in place of Gigi Riva, as head of the national football teams, Gigi Buffon, great goalkeeperone of the symbols of Italy World Champion in Berlin, but who has never made a secret of cultivating the hobby of the legal hezzer. Nothing against the formal rules, for charity less than less illegal or anti -system, but perhaps it could have been a problem of opportunities, especially since Figc is an institution in football.
While Francesco Totti, flew to Russia, in exchange seems to be a six zeri check, invited by a chat of betting agency is today “only” a symbol.
Does the “dignity decree” have the days counted?
Moreover, the same rules set in 2018 with the Dignity Decree for which “in Italy any form of advertising are processed in 2018, Also indirect, relating to games or bets with winnings of money as well as gambling, however carried out and on any means, including sporting, cultural or artistic events, television or radio broadcasts, daily and periodic press, publications in general, billboards and IT, digital and telematic channels, including social media “.
On March 5, the Senate Culture Commission approved a resolution (speaker Paolo Marcheschi Fdl), within the so -called “football reform”, which provides for the revision of the regulations governing advertising for the games sector. If the text should be definitively approved, betting operators will be able to resume sponsor sporting events, provided that they are completely regulated and authorized by the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM).
How much pathological venture costs
The “dignity” decree stood at a time when a social plague was felt as the dependence on pathological game, which does not disappear or rather, is with every evidence a problem only of some footballer, even if it makes more news if it happens to the beech trees on duty, which has now come out.
According to a study entitled Social Costs of Gambling Harm in Italy (the social cost of gambling in Italy), published in 2022 by professors Fabio Lucchini and Simona Comi, the social costs of gambling in Italy amount to over 2.3 billion euros per year. The study offers an estimate, dividing them into various categories of health and social assistance costs: 60.2 million euros; Costs related to unemployment and productivity loss: 1,253.4 million euros; Costs related to suicides: 291.6 million euros; Family costs (separations and divorces): 9 million euros; Costs relating to crime and judicial system: 709.8 million euros.
According to the authors, it would be a underestimation, because it calculates public costs, without taking into account those incurred by the so -called moderate or low risk players, nor the impact on the families of problematic players and notes that estimates based on different parameters would lead the social costs of the problematic game in Italy, to a range variable of 1.5 billion euros (lower estimate) to 4.1 billion euros (higher estimate).
In Italy at least one and a half million problematic players
According to the first epidemiological investigation of 2018 of the Higher Institute of Health on the pathological arape: out of 14 and a half million Italians (equal to 36.4% of the population) who admitted to having practiced gambling at least once a year, about one and a half million were classified as problematic players. Pandemia has probably worsened the situation especially regarding the online game. According to a article published in Medicine of addictions, on the impact of Pandemia from Covid-19 on gambling in Italy: the results of the Lost in Italy study: «Among those who did not play in gambling before Lockdown, 1.1% started playing. Among those who played gambling even before Lockdown, 19.7% increased frequency or game time ».
