Does legal gambling really drive away the mafia? A book dismantles the rhetoric of the gambling giants

“Gambling is an ordinary activity, purely for fun, that millions of Italians engage in absolutely spontaneously and naturally; legal gambling is the most irreducible enemy of illegal gambling, usually managed by organized crime.” These very positive statements about state gambling are defined as “elementary truths” in a 2023 report signed by Lottomatica and Censis. Lottomatica is one of the concessionaires of the State Monopolies that makes substantial profits from legal gambling. Censis is the famous private research center that “photographs” the Italians every year. However, it’s a pity that within the report these statements are not at all documented, but only reflect the partisan interest of those who commissioned the research.

Rocco Sciarrone, a sociologist at the University of Turin and among the most authoritative scholars of the mafia phenomenon, along with researchers Federico Esposito and Lorenzo Picarella, takes a critical look at the Lottomatica-Censis report in the book “Gambling, the State, the Mafias,” recently published by Donzelli. Meanwhile, Parliament is discussing the delegated law for the reorganization of a sector that brought in a whopping 13.7 billion euros to the state coffers in 2022.

“Rather than truths, these are very debated points of view at the public level, but also strongly criticized in the scientific field,” the authors write. “There is no trace of discussions about this in the Report, just as the negative externalities, for example, the social and health costs caused by the spread of public gambling, are completely minimized.” Many positions favorable to state gambling are vulgarly attributed “to the Italians” in percentages. But the researchers reply: “Nothing, however, is said about the methods and research techniques used to produce them.” It is, therefore, a pure “display of data that transforms opinions into ‘elementary truths’, on the basis of which to enunciate precise political options on the model of regulation of public gambling considered most just and effective.”

Moreover, as read in the volume, gambling as “pure fun” has nothing to do with “speculative” gambling, which aims at monetary winnings, and even less with the pathology of “compulsive” gambling. But it is on the second issue that the work of Sciarrone, Esposito, and Picarella goes in-depth, analyzing among other things numerous judicial investigations. Is legal gambling, such as betting on the FanDuel Breeders Cup or NBA Finals, really the “most irreducible” enemy of illegal gambling?

Giving a scientific answer is difficult, but certainly, several elements indicate the exact opposite. As it is, the legal gambling sector itself shows “vulnerabilities” that offer “mafia organizations considerable earning opportunities with reduced risk exposure,” also due to the difficulty of operating controls. So much so that “mafia penetration is recorded in almost all types of public gambling, with the exception of Lotto and national lotteries.” Therefore, video poker, slots, online gambling, but also fake “scratch and win” cards.

Mafiosi enter the gambling market controlled by the State Monopolies mainly with objectives of “money laundering, acquisition of companies, distribution of illicit products (the infamous rigged machines, ed.) and violent market control.” The first two activities, as read in the essay, “are transversal and manifest themselves, for example, with the acquisition and management of halls where gambling is offered. On the distribution and imposition – even violent – of legal and illicit products, entertainment devices with cash winnings – the so-called slot machines – and the online gambling sector,” the latter growing strongly in the post-pandemic, are central.

Exemplary is one of the judicial cases reported in the book. A ‘Ndrangheta group active in the Turin area managed old-style illegal gambling dens, hidden in recreational clubs. In the clubs, rigged video poker machines gradually appear. Then the video poker machines are also installed in other “compliant” premises in the territory controlled by the group through “companies registered to frontmen.” Meanwhile, the old-style gambling dens continue to operate, also because they attract a different clientele from that of the machines. The Piedmontese ‘Ndranghetists, therefore, simply saw an additional opportunity in legal gambling.

The facts say that the situation is much less rosy than the Lottomatica-Censis report and other similar publications claim. Indeed, it decidedly turns to “gray,” conclude Sciarrone and colleagues: “Ultimately, the gambling sector appears as a particularly gray market, characterized by significant ambivalences and regulatory asymmetries, but above all by processes of interpenetration and hybridization between the legal and illegal spheres.”