Italian Poker Online

Italy online poker overview

Italians looking to play some online poker will certainly find a unique market. The Mediterranean country offers players a ring-in poker environment and here you’ll find everything you need to bet a few euros.

• Newgioco achieves a top-five ranking in the highly contested Italian online poker market. According AGIMEG, the top 30 operators reporting results with Newgioco capturing 5.56% of market share are as follows.
• Mustapha 'lasagnaaammm' Kanit leads the Italian poker team with over $11MUSD in live tournament profits and more than $5MUSD online. In total, 9 WSOP bracelets have been won by Italian players: Max Pescatori (4), Dario Alioto (1), Valter Farina (1), Dario Minieri (1), Rocco Palumbo (1) and Davide Suriano (1).
• Partypoker has obtained a gaming license to operate in the Italian poker market. Effective April 1, 2020, the license permits partypoker to offer real money online poker games to players in Italy. The license agreement will see some of partypoker’s global tournament titles brought to the Italian market from April 1, after an absence of four.

This article offers a complete look at the Italian poker landscape and online poker operators. You’ll find details on how to deposit, set up an account, take advantage of unique promotions and bonuses, and much more.

Italy’s Online Gambling Laws – is Poker Legal? Online poker is legal in Italy, regulated in 2009. However its players are segregated from other countries and operator taxes are partially passed onto players in the form of higher rake.

There are also details on the country’s regulations and market. Whether your bankroll is big or small, keep reading to find a site that best fits you.

Like many other European Union member states, Italy has a fencedonline gambling market. This means Italians have to play on locally regulated poker networks. These are completely unavailable to people residing abroad. Other than that, Italian regulations are quite poker-friendly. They recognize the fact that poker is a game of skill, allow players to participate in a wide range of games, and don’t put unnecessary burdens on operators.

Italy online poker laws

According to Law no. 383/01, introduced in 2001, Agenzia delle dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) is the sole regulator of all gambling activities in Italy. All forms of internet gambling are considered legal as long as the operator has an Italian gambling license or a signed business agreement with a license holder. Regulations pertaining to online poker tournaments and cash games are listed in the ADM Director Decree dating back to Jan. 10, 2011.

What is or is not legal in Italy?

As per the aforementioned 2011 ADM decree, Italy-facing internet poker operators are free to offer all the popular cash game, STT, and MTT options to Italy residents. ADM does not force poker sites to use geo-location plugins. Instead, regulations forbid them from offering real-money games to anyone without an Italian fiscal code. Moreover, Italian ISPs are required to block offshore gambling sites.

As a result, neither Italian players nor foreigners can “hop the fence” surrounding the market. In this case, lawmakers succeeded in completely isolating the local internet poker scene from the rest of the globe. The only way out would be to use a VP. However, legitimate poker sites almost always close the account of an offending player if they detect this sort of abuse.

Italy and poker-related taxes

As mentioned above, poker is considered a skill-based game in Italy. Thus, according to Article 1, Paragraph 945 of Law no. 208/2015, players have to pay a single 20 percent tax on all sums not returned to them. In the case of poker, this refers specifically to rake and tournament fees.

Quite obviously, a higher rake will negatively impact players’ profits. The extent of this impact differs from one poker variant to another. In fact, even stakes come into the equation, as turning a profit in low-stakes games typically requires more grinding. For example, the profit margins for micro-stakes cash games tend to be really low. This makes them nearly “unwinnable” for most Italian players. This isn’t such a big issue in the case of MTTs and other single-payout formats.

Where can I play poker online in Italy?

Italian poker enthusiasts have only two regulated platforms. Since one is three times as big as the other, the choice doesn’t seem too difficult. However, it is worth noting not everything is what it seems in the online poker world. In most cases, the less-popular sites feature softer games. These are exploitable as long as the overall traffic is at an acceptable level.

The above patterns hold true when it comes to PokerStars.it and iPoker.it.

PokerStars.it

PokerStars Europe aside, the company’s Italian branch is the largest and healthiest poker room of all the ones available on any fenced European market. The player pool is about 10 times smaller than in the case of the international version of PokerStars, but that’s more than enough to keep the cash games running and to provide MTT enthusiasts with generous prize pools.

As far as selection, expect healthy Hold’em cash games, Sit & Go tournaments that don’t take ages to take off. Additionally, there are multi-table tournaments with decent prize pools and an Omaha lobby that isn’t empty. If you love poker and you live in Italy, PokerStars.it is very likely to push all the right buttons for you.

Aside from the main PokerStars poker room, PokerStars.it’s sister sites include PokerStars Europe, PokerStars.pt, and PokerStars NJ.

iPoker.it

As mentioned previously, iPoker.it is about three times smaller than PokerStars.it. That’s actually a great success if you consider the differences in traffic between those platforms on the global poker scene. It’s also worth noting “three times smaller” doesn’t mean small in this case. More than 600 players during peak traffic hours are more than enough to sustain iPoker’s flagship low-stakes games.

Italian Poker Online Game

This site is a decent choice for inexperienced poker enthusiasts. Low-stakes cash games and low buy-in tournaments sit in the spotlight. The games are also very loose with plenty of post-flop action.

Cash game traffic in Italy

The seven-day average for players participating in standard cash games hosted on all Italy-licensed sites falls within the 1,100-1,300 range. This number rises to 2,200-2,800 when traffic reaches its peak. That tends to occur between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. (GMT).

The variance is very high. Plus, it’s hard to discern any reliable patterns. Sometimes the seven-day peak will occur on Monday, while another time it may be on a Saturday.

The number of active players doesn’t dip below 2,000 around the peak, but it’s worth noting it does drop below 1,000 during off-hours. Consequently, timing poker sessions correctly will positively impact profitability. You’ll also get more options when it comes to table selection during peak hours.

Where can I play live poker in Italy?

Italy currently boasts 11 high-profile land-based poker rooms. Unfortunately, none seem to be particularly noteworthy:

• Casino de la Vallee – St. Vincent Poker Room (11027 Saint-Vincent, Aosta Valley)
• Casino di Venezia – Ca’ Vendramin Calergi Poker Room (Cannaregio, 2040, 30121 Venezia VE)
• Via Paliaga Poker Room (Via Paliaga, 4, 30173 Venezia VE)
• Casino Le Palme at Hippodrome Abruzzo Poker Room (Via Salara, 55, 66020 San Giovanni teatino CH)
• Casino di Campione Poker Room (Piazzale Milano, 2, 22060 Campione d’Italia CO)
• Casinò Le Palme Civitanova Poker Room (Via Giorgio Sidney Sonnino, 7, 62012 Aurora MC)
• De Sanctis Poker Room (Corso degli Inglesi, 18, 18038 Sanremo IM)
• Costa Cruises – Mediterranea Poker Room (Via dei Calafati, 16, 17100 Savona SV)
• Princess Cruises – Pacific Princess Poker Room (Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, 19, 00053 Civitavecchia RM)
• Saint Vincent Casino and Resort Poker Room (Via Mus, 11027 Saint-Vincent AO)
• Slottery Las Vegas Olgiate Olona Poker Room (Via Busto Fagnano, 44, 21057 Olgiate Olona VA)

History of online poker in Italy

Italian gambling regulations are considered fairly reasonable these days. This hasn’t always been the case though.

In the early days of online poker, the relevant laws were needlessly restrictive. Players were outright prohibited from participating in online poker games. Fortunately, much like in the case of other Western countries, these regulations weren’t enforced back in the day. As a result, when Italian poker enthusiasts witnessed Chris Moneymaker win the 2003 WSOP Main Event, they did what pretty much everyone else did at the time. Without a care in the world, they started joining global poker networks en masse.

Italian regulators took a few years to notice they were bleeding money due to strict, outdated laws. Still, they managed to plug this leak well ahead of other European governments.

In 2007, the country put the first batch of internet poker regulations on the books, establishing the Italian fenced poker market. Back then, local players weren’t allowed to participate in online cash games. Fortunately, ADM officials recognized the error of their ways fairly quickly. They removed the restriction in the aforementioned 2011 Director Decree.

Italy has a very rich gambling history going back at least as far as the Roman Empire, where Roman soldiers were known to have played a forerunner of backgammon. The first gambling house was opened in Italy in the 17th century, as the government sought to regulate gambling by confining it to these places, which eventually became called casinos, where the term originated from. (1)

Italians are also known for inventing the game of baccarat, and a forerunner to what is now considered bingo. One thing is for sure, Italians have always loved to gamble, and this remains the case to this day.

Italian law makes a sharp distinction between gambling based purely upon luck and those which have at least some element of skill to it. There is much more permissiveness for allowing money to be wagered on games of skill in Italy, including the game of poker, which is clearly a game where skill is involved.

Part of the reason behind this is due to a feeling that pure games of skill involving players being exploited more, where if there is skill involved then players can at least influence the outcome and account for themselves more so to speak.

Italy actually had some pretty restrictive laws prior to 2006 though when it came to gambling, however since then things have really loosened up and games involving skill are no longer illegal in general, and games of pure chance are permitted as well although tightly regulated.

So Italy does have a few casinos that operate, although there are only a total of five, which is a bit surprising with a country this size, but casino games still are somewhat frowned upon and the regulators still seek to limit this sort of action to a large degree. (2)

There are only 3 places in Italy that you can play live poker at in fact, however Italy does have a pretty large online poker presence, and offers its residents access to a regulated online poker scene through its licensing of several popular online poker rooms restricted to residents of the country. (3)

Italian Regulated Online Poker

Prior to online poker regulation, Italian players just did what everyone else did, they just played online poker wherever they wanted and there was no real issues. However, as is becoming increasingly the case, governments see the amount of money that is spent on online poker and want a piece of the action, something that they cannot do when the money is flowing out of the country to poker sites located elsewhere.

So in order to tax this poker revenue, it becomes necessary to regulate it, and that’s exactly what Italy did back in 2007, being the first country to do so in fact. The Finance Act of 2007 legalized poker and other games of skill in Italy, subject to regulations.

Italian Poker Online Sites

Among these were that poker had to be confined to tournament play only, and this was the case with the original licensed Italian online poker sites, something that didn’t go over particularly well with a lot of players who sought to play cash poker online as well.

As this went on, Italian lawmakers eventually thought better of this and expanded the permitted games in 2011 to include cash poker as well. These rules also extended to other games of skill such as sports betting, which is a very popular form of gambling in Italy.

The Italian Online Poker Scene

So this provided us with the framework that we now have, where Italian online poker players now have several legal and regulated options to choose among and many are quite popular. The new relaxed regulations did promote a surge in the popularity of online poker for a time, peaking in 2012.

Things have fallen off a fair bit since then, as perhaps the novelty wore off a bit, and traffic is down about 50% from the peak then. However it still remains very viable, particularly at Poker Stars’ Italian site, which in spite of it being limited exclusively to Italian residents, it consistently ranks among the top 10 busiest poker site in the world, and at the time of this writing sits in fifth place overall, ahead of even the main Party Poker site which has always been a dominant force in the online poker world. (4)

There are several other licensed online poker rooms that serve the country of Italy, but none with anywhere near the traffic of the Poker Stars site, who have over half the Italian online poker traffic to themselves.

As is to be expected with regulated poker, rake rates do tend to be higher due to the higher levels of taxation that are involved, although given the continuing success of Italian poker, the rake certainly isn’t a big enough deal to keep people from wanting to play here, and Italian poker currently has a long track record of relative success dating back over 7 years now, so it’s not that it is new and relatively untested.

There have been some poker rooms which have struggled in Italy, like PRK did, but this is more reflective of not being able to compete enough with the competition rather than a lack of health of the market overall. Sure, Italy’s online poker numbers have declined, but so has online poker in general over this period, and while Italy’s decline is larger, it may be that it just ended up adjusting to a more normal level of interest after the early novelty wore off.

At least residents of Italy can play online with the utmost of confidence that they are not running afoul of the law in any way and in fact have the full blessing of the government in doing so, and if having to pay a little higher rake is the cost of that, which it is, it can be seen as a nice trade off.

References:

(1) Gambling In Italy

(2) Italian Casinos

(3) Live Poker and Casino in Italy

(4) Online Poker Traffic Rankings

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