Debt Crisis? Italy resorts to online gambling - Rome exploits a national addiction to solve its budget crisis -
In a small roadside cafe in southern Tuscany, a loud metallic sound, like the crash of many bells, shatters the Sunday afternoon silence. A couple has just won at a slot machine-like game.
They have been playing for nearly an hour. Now they plan to stay longer, at least until they have spent all the money they have just won. This is a typical way of killing long summer afternoons, they say. They’re unsure exactly how much they have spent so far. “Less than 100 euros, that's for sure,” the man says. “And now we've won!”
It’s a scene that, at any given time, plays out all over this gambling-addicted country. The “macchinette mangiasoldi” (money eating machine) the couple has been playing has become ubiquitous in Italy over the past several years. There are now 380,000 of them, producing 31.1 billion euros in revenue in 2010, or about 500 euros per Italian, according to official data.
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