Italians Like Poker

September 20, 2008

It would seem that Italians are taking to online poker like fish do to water. The country has recently allowed online poker in for their residents to play – and they have taken immense advantage of the opportunity.

Online poker has only been in Italy for a few days, but initial figures are already showing that a ton of players are finding out what online poker is all about. Microgame and Gioco Digitale are two operators who have connected their poker systems to the SOGEI government database and they say that poker is popular.

The Italian Finance Ministry had predicted that online poker would be a huge money maker for the country – bringing in somewhere around 400 million Euros during the first year it was legalized. Of that money, 3% or roughly $12 million would go into Treasury coffers.

However, now they think that those numbers could even be higher than that. During the first weekend alone, where they could only play three hours a day, the number of people logging in to play poker was amazing. They say that there were 870 games hosted, with 1500 poker players.

They expect that it will surpass any initial estimates as Italians take their poker skills online. Plus, they will soon be able to play 24/7 – which is bound to put their numbers through the roof.