Law, Judges and Authorized Gambling in Italy: A Tale of Contradictions

To date, notwithstanding the large number of scholarly investigations into the legal implications of gambling, little attention has been paid to the interaction between contract law, and the negative moral or social labelling which traditionally affects gambling contracts in many Western countries. The purpose of this article is to investigate how Italian civil courts have applied Civil code and Consumer code rules on abusive clauses to cases involving authorized gambling and betting contracts. These rules should apply to authorized gambling and betting contracts, which generally involve an individual player and a professional service provider, either because the player adheres to a standard contract or because she should be considered a consumer. Unfortunately, Italian judges often refrain from applying these protective rules to cases involving gaming and betting contracts, to the detriment of players. This article critically investigates these cases to explore how judges justify this differential treatment of players of this form of legal game, highlighting the harmful effects of this discriminatory treatment on consumers and society in general.