The Impact of Gambling on Government Budget: A European Comparison with a Focus on Italy - L’impatto del gioco d’azzardo sul bilancio dello stato: un confronto europeo e analisi del contesto italiano

Enrico Di Bella (), Luca Gandullia () and Lucia Leporatti ()
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Enrico Di Bella: University of Genoa, Department of Economics and Business Studies, Postal: Via Vivaldi 5 - 16126 Genova, Italy,, http://www.diem.unige.it/

Economia Internazionale / International Economics, 2015, vol. 68, issue 2, 187-212

Abstract: During the last decade most of the European countries started a process of liberalization of gambling with the aim of fighting against illegal gambling and collecting an increasing amount of tax revenues. In this paper, after providing a comparison on main gambling institutional and tax differences across a selection of European countries, we evaluate the impact of gambling on government budget in order to understand if gambling consumption cannibalizes other forms of consumption, making doubtful the net effect for the government revenues. Results of our empirical analysis show that the effect of gambling on state balance is very small and, in some cases, not significant. Considering also the relevant social costs connected to pathological gambling, this result is interesting for policy makers who often consider gambling revenues as a possible alternative source of tax revenues. - Nell’ultimo decennio, la maggior parte dei paesi Europei ha intrapreso un processo di progressiva liberalizzazione del mercato del gioco d’azzardo, allo scopo di disincentivare il gioco illegale e di ottenere un crescente ammontare di entrate erariali. In questo lavoro, dopo aver fornito un confronto sulle principali differenze istituzionali e fiscali all’interno dei paesi UE, sarà valutato l’impatto del gioco sul bilancio dello Stato al fine di comprendere se il gioco d’azzardo cannibalizzi altre forme di consumo rendendo dubbio l’effetto netto per lo Stato. I risultati mostrano come l’impatto del gioco d’azzardo sulle entrate erariali sia molto ridotto e in alcuni casi non significativo. Considerando gli elevati costi sociali connessi al gioco patologico questo risultato può essere di utilità per i decisori pubblici che spesso considerano il gioco d’azzardo come una possibile e importante fonte alternativa di entrate per le casse dello Stato.

Keywords: Gambling; Fiscal System; Tax Revenues; Pathological Gambling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 H20 H30 R13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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