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With a proposed Slot Mob released on July 10th in a country that needs to get off on the right foot we want to raise awareness of the following:

• The encouraged spread of mass gambling is the most striking example of an economic system that produces victims and widens social inequalities.
• Despite the weaknesses or complicity of national politics, a section of Italian civil society is resisting the idolatrous power of money, as witnessed by those bartenders who refuse to sell gambling products (slot machines, scratch cards, super lotteries, etc.) on their premises
• Gathering together for a festive moment of collective consumption in a place that is free or free from gambling expresses the strength of a social bond that is stronger than the logic of profit.
• Slot Mob is a public gesture of awareness towards the necessary change of unjust structures: in Italy this means removing gambling concessions from commercial companies in favour of public management, attentive to the common good.
• The real pathological dependence is, in fact, that of the state cash box on the revenue managed by the gambling industry structurally interested in the quest for profit. The permanence of mass gambling cannot be justified by the blackmail of employment: the resources of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan should be directed to an economic reconversion capable of generating decent work, while new revenue for the Treasury should be sought by striking at tax havens and existing forms of speculation.
• The pandemic helps us to understand that we cannot save ourselves on our own.  We must aim to change the rules of the game in the economic and social system.
• July 10th is an opportunity to take seriously the Pope’s invitation to the young people of the Economy of Francesco: “You cannot remain outside of where the present and the future are generated. Either you are involved or history will pass you by”.