The explosion of gambling “is devastating the territory,” said Simon Feder, a psychologist who founded a “no slot” protest movement in Pavia that aims to ban the machines from public spaces. “It is an anti-economy that impoverishes because it doesn’t spread money around, it just gobbles it up.”

With the economy still weak, spending on gambling, like other consumer spending, shrank this year for the first time, but it was still projected to reach about $115 billion for 2013. On average, one in every eight dollars spent by an Italian family goes toward gambling, four times more than 15 years ago, said Maurizio Fiasco, a sociologist at a national commission that combats usury.

Residents of Pavia province, situated in a wealthy region, spend about $4,124 a year on gambling, more than double the national average of about $1,650, according to a report issued in December by the gambling news agency Agimeg.

Many blame the sheer availability of the machines for the rising trend.