decrease of 40-50%. Even in northern Europe without tough marketing restrictions, we are talking about a significant decrease in traditional advertising. Perhaps it’s too early to talk about Belgium or the Netherlands, where the ban was approved just two months ago, but the trend goes in the same direction. I would like to highlight one aspect that despite this trend, there is no uniformity at all among these restrictions. And this creates complex and controversial situations as we will see during this session, in terms of the prohibition of advertising and also with influencers in terms of social media. Once again, this opens up the big debate or the question for our experts about where is the balance, where is there proportional regulation? Can we empower media organizations to fulfill their role of free press? We need to challenge the restrictions that are being imposed. We will have the opportunity to discuss these questions from different perspectives because on our panel we have an affiliate, we have an operator and we have two advisors from two major jurisdictions. But since it all started in Italy, I would like to start with you, Quirino. Please, can you explain what the situation is now after more than five years of an advertising ban. QM: Thank you, thank you Alla. Yes, I would say if we want just a headline, what is happening or what has happened in Italy over the past five years? I would say, not much in terms of actual effects of the blanket gambling advertising ban that was implemented in July 2018. I think the regulators in this room, especially those that are only now setting about dealing with how to regulate and enforce a very crucial aspect of this business, which is advertising and marketing. I think they should carefully look at the Italian example, to know how not to do things. Because I can tell you this, the whole initiative is heavily biased. It was triggered by a populist party, the Five Star Movement, which won the elections back in 2018, and since then fell in full disgrace, but back then was very powerful. Suffice it to say that this is a populist movement that was founded by a comedian turned into politician. These guys had had no clue about how gaming works, what are the real issues etc, they just wanted to deliver something that is very politically correct, because clamping down on the gambling industry is tantamount to clamping down on the tobacco industry or the alcohol industry. So, they came out with this set of rules prohibiting virtually everything. But then, because there was no preparation, there were no independent studies supporting the needs for these regulations, what they delivered was a set of rules which were easily played around by the industry. They said that you cannot advertise or you cannot even sponsor, any type of sports activity or artistic activity etc. But if your brand which is associated to a gaming business, is also used to offer additional services, those services can be advertised. So what what happened is it’s very simple. All the operators rushed to launch news services, live TV services, statistics services, and they added to their brand and name an additional something. Not mention any specific operator, let’s say Mancini was a successful gaming operation, after July 2018 they would started promoting Mancini news.com. So in practice, if you watch a live football game and you keep an eye on what’s happening perimeter side you will find all familiar brands and the names of the mainstream gaming operators exactly like before, the only difference being this little something which has been added. And of course, once you are able to advertise, and to engage with people that are going on the news website, then the next step will be to recruit them for the real money gambling service. But that’s something that happens eventually. And before finishing my first comments, I would like also to emphasize the fact that this was a very ill judged decision and implemented in an even worse manner. If the real purpose was to protect consumers, to protect minors, to prevent more cases of gambling addiction, etc, someone should explain to me why equally dangerous and harmful businesses, like for example cryptocurrencies, are not regulated at all in Italy. And all those spaces, the advertising spaces that had been temporarily freed up as a result of the gambling advertising ban, were promptly filled up by cryptocurrencies, financial trading online and other things that are all unregulated, all quite dangerous, financially dangerous for unsophisticated investors. So much so that now various crypto brands are also on the shirts of many football clubs. And this is an inconsistency because this is the same government that five years ago said we will do something f to protect the community. So the question is, what the hell are you doing to protect the community against other threats against other big harms o this same community?
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