Italy’s gambling tax: a losing hand?

On Wednesday, after a week of slipped deadlines and haggling with Brussels, Giorgia Meloni’s Cabinet approved a budget worth approximately €26 billion ($29 billion). At her press conference afterwards, the prime minister confirmed that €700 million would come from gambling. That is a rounding of the Draft Budgetary Plan sent to Brussels earlier this month , which pencils in €718 million in both 2027 and 2028 and €478 million in 2029. What Meloni did not say is who will pay.