2023-09-20 18:07:23
We talk about it little and superficially, but the Italian gambling turnover is a market worth over one hundred and thirty billion euros a year. And it is among the largest in Europe, growing worldwide. Its development is mainly due to “the progressive expansion of the offer of games over the last thirty years, favored by political choices aimed at increasing tax collection for the benefit of the state budget. A liberalization which has produced huge profits to the advantage of the concessionaire companies , to whom the management of the sector is delegated”. The three authors of the volume to be released on September 22nd by Donzelli editore explain it: Rocco Sciarrone, Federico Esposito and Lorenzo Picarella.
Built starting from the results of extensive empirical research, the investigative book delves into “the processes of regulation of the gambling market, analyzing in particular the role played by the mafias – the three tell us – The investigation is based on a dual perspective : one aimed at understanding how the sector actually works, reconstructing the market chains and the economic interests in the field. The other focused on the strategies of mafia groups, with reference to both physical network gaming and online gaming, which is rapidly expanding in the last few years”.
The intent is to avoid the ‘mafia-centric’ perspective, i.e. focused exclusively on the criminal actor. The study in fact highlights “the porosity of the legal-illegal dichotomy that seems to distinguish the gambling market, contributing to a more precise knowledge of the relationship between gaming and mafia phenomena, to offer policy proposals to the public debate currently underway”.
The profile of the scholars who conducted the investigation is specific and detailed, having the University of Turin as its center of reference: Sciarrone teaches Sociology of mafias and Regulatory processes and criminal networks at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University , where he is also director of Larco (Laboratory of Analysis and Research on Organized Crime), as well as co-director of the Luigi Bobbio Center for public and applied social research.
Federico Esposito, on the other hand, obtained his PhD at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples Federico II, currently works as a research fellow at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. Finally, Lorenzo Picarella obtained his PhD in Studies on Organized Crime at the State University of Milan and is also a research fellow at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society at the University of Turin.
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