Italian Poker Thrives

As we are all aware, there is a Global financial struggle in the current economy. This, however, does not seem to be affecting poker playing at online casinos in Italy. The Ministry of Finance in Italy recently released the latest statistics for the online casino industry and the results were far higher than what they originally predicted. The Ministry originally predicted that the online casino industry would make Euro 400 million. The world of internet poker in Italy had a turnover of Euro 600 million which increased the previous forecast of Euro 400 million to Euro 1 billion. The demand of online poker in Italy had come to a bit of a surprise to the online casino industry.

The latest numbers threw of the online casino’s predictions so badly that The Ministry is sitting back and watching what happens with the industry’s revenue. This may be due to the fact that the internet poker in Italy was recently deregulated and now has more networks available to participate in the region. The networks that have recently joined are some of our favorite online casinos: PokerStars. Boss Media and Playtech. This is not the first time that the Italians have seen an increase in their internet poker revenues, in November of 2008 they had a 41 percent increase from their month to month numbers by Euro 74.4 million. This means that their Italian operator, Microgame S.p.A. was hosting over 370,000 games per month and taking 30.3 percent of their business. If the Italian online casinos keep going at this rate they will become one of the world’s most coveted online poker audiences.