Secular and ecclesiastical authorities have in general been very negative towards gambling. But from the thirteenth century onwards, a number of local authorities tried to control gambling by making it legal, intensifying at the same time the prohibitions against illegal gambling.
This was done by issuing licenses to run gaming places. The owners of these places had to sign and follow a contract and pay a revenue to the issuing authority. This meant that the players could gamble in a predictable way, the owners of the gaming places could have a legal income from gambling, and the local authorities had an income from issuing the licenses. It was a win-win situation for everybody –except of course for those who lost in gambling.
This practice was studied by the medievalist Gherardo Ortalli, who coined it as the phenomenon of “gambler-state”.