PISA, Italy - When Luciano walked into an anti-addiction clinic in the central Italian city of Pisa, the only thing he had not lost to years of gambling were the clothes he was wearing. Everything else - family homes, savings, his dignity - was gone.

"I devoted myself to casinos, horses, everything. Basically, I toured all the casinos in Europe; I spent all my assets, I gambled them, I gambled everything away in those places," the 69-year-old retired railway worker told Reuters.

Luciano's story exemplifies some of the darker realities behind Italy's emergence as Europe's largest gambling market, with the spread of online and smartphone betting making it ever easier to place wagers.

The growth of Italy's gambling industry has outpaced Britain, Germany, and France, with gross gaming revenues - the difference between the amount wagered and the amount won - hitting 21.5 billion euros ($25 billion) in 2024.

FAMILY VALUES, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE MAFIA

Booming betting habits have helped to line state coffers and have put conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a self-declared defender of family values, at odds with the Catholic Church and others who have called for tighter regulation.

"(Gambling) ruins people, it impoverishes, in many cases it destroys relationships, so it is clear that a huge effort (to control it) is needed by everyone," the head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, said in June.

There are indications that the mafia has a hand in Italy's gambling addiction: this year's "Black Book of Gambling" report, compiled by the CGIL trade union, showed betting was especially widespread in poorer and mafia-ridden southern regions.

Italy's anti-Mafia directorate routinely lists gambling and online betting as a sector infiltrated by mafia groups, particularly the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, for money laundering purposes.

THE GAMBLING FALLOUT

About 20.5 million Italians, 43% of the adult population, gambled at l...