Italy drops land-based gambling reform from 2025 agenda as Malta Gaming Authority flags governance gaps and Europe’s regulated markets face higher compliance costs

Two things matter for high-risk payments here: Italy has pushed its land-based gambling reorganisation off the government’s legislative agenda for this year, and Europe’s regulated gambling markets are getting more expensive to operate in. Add Malta’s regulator pointing out governance weaknesses among operators and suppliers, and you get a familiar picture: more oversight, more friction, and less room for sloppy controls.

1. Italy’s draft Land-based Gambling Reorganisation Decree has been removed from the government’s legislative agenda for this year after being rejected by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office. The plan was meant to standardise oversight under the ADM, but it had already been delayed by negotiations with regional authorities. For operators and payment partners, the practical effect is another round of uncertainty on licensing, tax treatment, and investment planning in Italy’s retail gambling market.
2. A separate proposal would introduce a football betting levy. Senator Paolo Marcheschi’s Bill 1902 calls for a 2 per cent tax on all football bets in Italy from January 1, 2027, with the money redirected from existing tax proceeds to fund the sport. AGIC, the industry association, has already raised concerns about the lack of long-term certainty in the market. For PSPs and acquirers, new sector-specific levies usually mean another reason to revisit pricing, reserve logic, and merchant forecasts.
3. The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) reviewed governance assurance among Maltese gambling operators and suppliers, focusing on the CEO, compliance, internal audit, and AML/CFT prevention functions. The regulator said many companies had mature governance frameworks, but it also identified weak spots: over-reliance on senior decision-makers and gaps in audit trails. It also pointed to good practice such as structured escalation procedures and risk-based monitoring programs. In payment terms, that is a reminder that regulators are now looking well beyond transaction monitoring and into how decisions are documented and escalated.
4. The MGA also warned against false claims of MGA licensing by certain gambling sites and listed several websites that are not licensed by the authority. For payment providers, that is the usual operational headache: if a merchant is marketing itself as licensed when it is not, the underwriting file and the live transaction flow are already out of sync.
5. Focus Gaming News also notes that Europe’s regulated gambling markets generated €123.4bn in gross gaming revenue in 2024, yet governments keep adding taxes, fees, and supervision costs to raise public revenue and player protection standards. The report points to the Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Germany, and Italy as examples of markets where compliance costs are rising. The thing is, this is not just a margin story for operators; it changes how PSPs price risk, where they can still get comfortable, and how much regulatory variance they need to absorb country by country.

That last point is the one to watch. Higher compliance spend, more fragmented rules, and tighter enforcement tend to push operators toward fewer payment stacks, cleaner documentation, and more selective market coverage. For providers sitting in high-risk, that is not a theoretical trend; it is the buying criteria.