In Italian CTD Battle, Stanley Inching toward Legal Recognition

With the Italian sports betting market booming it is often difficult to understand the intricacies that exist with the country’s retail betting sector. Alongside outlets licensed in the 1999-2000 tender and the 2006-07 bid process, there are still many thousands of Punti Remoti and CTDs where it is equally possible to make a bet.

Such is the demand for betting in Italy that turnover in those outlets connected to the government’s database is continuing its double-digit percentage rise at the same time operators -- like the United Kingdom’s Stanleybet International and Austria’s Goldbet -- manage hundreds of CTDs that allow customers to transmit their bets outside of the country.

However, on April 16, decisions by the Italian High Court appear to have brought more clarity to the situation and moved Stanley one step closer to legal recognition.

According to Stanley’s press release, issued after the announcement by the Cassazione High Court judges, the fact that the bookmaker was prevented from participating in both tenders sets them apart from other unlicensed operators, like Goldbet, that did not have the same experience.

The firm said its exclusion from both tenders also puts them on par with operators that did acquire an online license or one or more retail concessions in one of the tenders.

The high court judges opted to refer details of the cases of foreign bookmakers operating in the country to the Sezioni Unite legal body for final clarification, after previously making a clear differentiation between the activities of Stanley and other unlicensed operators in the country.

That Stanley was ruled to be in a “unique” position prompted the firm’s managing director, John Whittaker, to declare: “We welcome with great satisfaction the decision of the Supreme Court. The Sezioni Unite have now the possibility to definitively clarify and end this issue after 10 years of legal battles.”

In light of previous rulings at both the European level and at Italian Cassation Courts on a number of occasions in the past, Mr. Whittaker has good reason to be optimistic, although lawyers for Italy’s licensed operators were quick to offer their interpretation and suggest that it may not all be plain sailing for the embattled bookmaker.

However, given that Stanley fell foul of the protectionist terms of the first tender in 1999, and were subsequently prevented from participating in the 2006 Bersani tender -- when the authorities failed to offer assurances that Stanley’s multimillion-euro bank guarantees would not be in jeopardy as a result of the presence of hundreds of CTDs in the country at the time of application -- does seem to suggest that they will win at the final hurdle.

If Stanley wins, then it is anyone’s bet how the Italian government will manage a situation where Stanley’s unlicensed outlets will be fully free to compete against those operators who spent millions to secure their betting licenses.