Resumen de Il gioco d' azzardo: l' iniquità di una tassa volontaria. La relazione tra posizione socio-economica e propensione al gioco
Italian sociology has largely overlooked gambling, even íf it is a wide_ spread phenomenon with important socio-economic redistributive consequences. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap exploring the relationship between socio-economic position and propensity to gamble among Italian households in rhe last decade. In the first part, we describe the main features of legal gambling in Italy and its importance for the State's revenues. In the second part, we review the main research findings from other countries, we discuss the main theories about social stratification of gambling and elaborate our research hypotheses. In the last part, we analyse data from three waves of the Israt's survey on Consumption of Italian Households (1999, 2003, 2008), focusing on participation and monthly expenditure in «Lotto, lotteries and soccer gambling». Results of non-parametric (Lorentz curves, Suits index) and parametric analyses (probit and OLS regressíon) indicate that gambling in Italy can be considered as a form of (voluntary) regressive taxation, because the less affluent households spend on gambling a higher proportion of their income than richer families. Furthermore, the effect of income on gambling expenditure is larger among the lower educated families. At the end, there is evidence of a higher propensity to gamble among households of the working class, with fewer women and elderly, and from the South of Italy.
