Eteronormazione ed autonormazione nella disciplina di giochi e scommesse: una modernità antica?

The article deals with deepening the relationship between autonormation and heteronormation assuming as object of observation the discipline reserved for the practice of games and bets in Roman law. The examination suggests the imposition of a different approach to the issue of private autonomy with the affirmation of the imperial sources of production of law. The ability of the associates to regulate themselves the relationships that concerned them, initially subject to control only ex post and ab extrinseco to prevent abuse, would later see the setting of precise preventive limits of explanation. Although the approach to the subject adopted by the Italian Civil Code is conspicuously influenced by nineteenth-century suggestions, the result of the oldest reflection can still be seen in the treatment reserved for contracts connected to gaming, in the delimitation of the area of facilitators of the practice of chance to purposes of their prosecution in criminal proceedings, in the assessment of the economic importance of the bet for the purpose of qualifying the conduct of the players in terms of punishable deviance.