Fruit machines clean out the Italians: more than 15 billion euros have been staked

From 2003 to 2010 the Italians have bet 57 billion euros. Italy citizens did not cut back on gambling: national lottery, SuperEnalotto, win for life, scratch cards, football pools, totogol (in Italy, a gambling game in which betters have to forecast weekly the seven or eight football matches that will score the most goals), horse racing, bingo, videolottery, on-line poker and fruit machines. And exactly these infamous “machines”, dispersed in bars and in many pubs, have recorded the largest increase in expenditure of fruit machine players, passing from 33 million euros in 2003 to 3.6 billion euros in 2010. Expectations already say there will be an increase of up to 19 billion euros.

Figures, published by the newspaper “Sole24 ore”, show that the number of people who entrust their future to luck keeps on increasing, independently of their income, as the recent gains at the Varese branch of the Iper shopping centre demonstrates. A retired person, with a 900 euros pension per month, bought a 100 euros scratch card and won the gains.

In 2010, Italians bought scratch cards for almost 2 billion euros, while Win for life, the game that assures a life income, passed from 98 million euros betted in 2009 to 140 million euros in 2010. Traditional bets are decreasing: horse racing passes from 144 million euros in 2003 to 84 million euros in 2010; football pools and so on ( totogol etc. etc ) lost 80 million euros of bets, reaching down to the minimum amount of 84 million euros. Even the SuperEnalotto myth seems to be in decline compared to the new betting phenomena, like video lottery and recorded a 128 million euros turnover between 2009 (1,638) and 2010 (1,510). In conclusion, the State earnings, have swelled the government coffers in seven years with 57,128 million euros, almost as much as three government budgets.