Online Gambling in Italy

It looks like online casinos and online poker have become increasingly more popular in Italy over the past year. The online poker industry has gone up from 188 million Euros to 200 million Euros from 2008 to 2009. That is a huge jump for online poker play to go up in just one year. The wagers in the online casino industry have gone up 9.5 percent during the first five months of 2009. The state monopoly of gambling, AAMS, said that the online casino and online poker industry have totaled 22 billion euros in the first five months of the year. The internet gambling industry has become increasingly more popular in Italy and it is most likely due to the change of attitude the government. The new direction from the government will allow that online casino industry to gain more ground in Italy.

The new laws in Italy will allow online casinos to extend their licensing agreements for most of the online casino and internet gambling industry. The Chief Officer of remote gaming at state regulator Amministrazione Autonoma dei monopoli dei Stato (AAMS), Francesco Rodano thinks he knows what to do with the Italian laws. Although he has not specified exactly what needs to be done, he knows that the Italian government needs to submit their proposed laws to the European Commission within the next three months so then they can have them approved and in place by the end of the year. Rodano does know that the taxes on internet gambling will be at 20 percent of the gross profits tax.

Italy does have laws for online poker but has yet to settle on rules for the rest of the online casino industry. Rodano said, "In tournament poker we can therefore take 3 percent of gross gaming revenues but that would not work in cash games as the operator takes a rake off every pot. We will therefore take the tax off the operators’ rake; this will allow them to set the rake at commercially viable levels."