Italy’s new poker markets

Not that long ago, Italy was facing the same issues as the United States in regards to online poker. Although the activity was considered illegal in both regions, a significant portion of the populace was logging onto internet poker rooms to play for real money; an estimated 2 million in Italy.

The difference between the two countries is that the Italian Republic finally did something about it that would benefit the country and its citizens. Italy chose to sanction and regulate online poker. Granted, Italy first tried an ISP block to prevent online poker gambling within its borders, and it wasn't until that failed that the republic went the other route to legalize online poker in Italy.

Whatever the case, the adult population of Italy is finally able to enjoy online poker without threat of legal recourse, and the government is generating massive revenue via taxation of online gambling.

Italy claims a healthy percentage of all revenue from online poker rooms, combined with considerable licensing fees to all internet poker rooms who want legal access to promote their products to Italian customers. PokerStars has been following the Italian online poker movement very closely, and their research discovered that the Italian online poker market would have an estimated net worth of €400 million annually. The taxation of €400 million would be astounding.

Italy's government chose to allow offshore online poker operators, as well as its own local, live poker rooms, to provide services to Italians legally over the internet. On the bright side, casino poker rooms can now present their tournaments online; on the dark side, for operators at least, all tournaments are taxed at about 20% – live and online, prize pool and fees. It's almost impossible for any operator to run a tournament at that rate of taxation and actually make a profit.

For the bigger companies, however, it's well worth it. A large, live casino with 400 rowdy poker tournament players is going to get a lot of cash games action – that's where the real profits are. An online poker room will get plenty of cash game response as well. The tournaments become little more than a lure, while all of the other offerings generate actual revenue.

PokerStars is expected to have the most success as an online poker room serving the Italian Republic. The poker site is so large to begin with, even if they lose money for the first year or two, their other worldly investments will easily keep them above water.

General Manager and Founder of European Poker Consulting, Thomas Lamatsch, estimates that Italy's will smaller online poker operations will have minimal success in the beginning, but that only about ten major poker rooms will make be left standing at the end of the day. These bigger Italian poker rooms can afford to offer the biggest tournament prizes and draw enough traffic to promote higher stakes cash games.

Online Poker Rooms Licensed in Italy
It's more difficult to get into the Italian online poker business because it costs about 30x more than entering any other standard jurisdiction, and requires an Italian-exclusive poker site.

There are currently less than two dozen online poker rooms taking advantage of Italy's new legal poker markets. pokerstars and Party Poker Italy are two of the forerunners, along with Eurobet Italian Poker and SNAI Poker and Games.