Online Poker in Italy?

pawningomaha

Have tried searching for a thread about whether you can play poker online in italy or not, but I couldn't find anything. I remember robin lacey asking a similiar questions a long time ago but cant find the thread or remember the results. So, does anyone know if its illegal to play online pokers from a hotel up the mountains of italy? Has anyone been recently?

Any info is greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Zab

I've certainly played against many people who have their location set to Italy.

Zab

http://www.pokerjunkie.com/online-poker-giant-hits-italy

roryc

B2B is absolutely FULL of Italians, I'd say more than half of the players are Italian... and 100% of those are absolutely TERRIBLE. Have yet to play against an Italian who was anyway decent.

I presume online poker was only recently legalised in Italy as all of the players I've come up against seem to struggle with the basic concepts/ hand rankings etc. They will stack off with any Ace, QJo etc... hilarious

Saying that though they are f***king ridiculously lucky

insomniak

yeah i was in italy and i played in net cafe's all over venice(some holiday)

some life

TripleAce

Yes you can but if you try to access ie. pokerstars.com or titanpoker.com it won't work. You have to use the .it .

Online poker is kind of regulated in Italy so you can access only specific poker rooms.

Headspace

I tried joining an Italian poker site recently called Gioco Digitale. Discovered it on sharkscope-total profit by site. Only sngs and mtts and man is the standard bad similiar to 3/4 years ago online. 100 sngs play like 10 on i-poker with loads of action.

pawningomaha

Thanks for all the info folks, was there a couple of years ago and wasn't able to access any gambling sites, sportsbook or poker. Got government warning website about internet gambling being illegal. Was hoping they'd loosened up their laws, great news with pokerstars being allowed. Lol at the max tourney buyin being €100 according to http://www.pokerjunkie.com/online-poker-giant-hits-italy poor bstrds.

Doesnt look like there's much traffic on that b2b network, stars n tilt should work, ipoker would be a bonus, so if i break a leg early on, i'll have somewhere to spend me spare time.

Nice one lads

[nicK]

yeah this time last year ipoker and betfair were banned for me.. guess they've since loosened up the laws..

arpajaiset

Headspace wrote: »

I tried joining an Italian poker site recently called Gioco Digitale. Discovered it on sharkscope-total profit by site. Only sngs and mtts and man is the standard bad similiar to 3/4 years ago online. 100 sngs play like 10 on i-poker with loads of action.

I took a look at the registration form too and it said this:

"You may only register and play with Gioco Digitale if you are 18 years of age or over and you are in possess of a valid "Codice Fiscale" assigned by the "Agenzia delle Entrate" of the Italian Government. Gioco Digitale cannot serve customers who are residents in the United States or in a country where online gaming activities are illegal according to the laws that apply in that jurisdiction."

Do you have an Italian tax identification number or was your registration attempt useless?

TripleAce

arpajaiset wrote: »

I took a look at the registration form too and it said this:

"You may only register and play with Gioco Digitale if you are 18 years of age or over and you are in possess of a valid "Codice Fiscale" assigned by the "Agenzia delle Entrate" of the Italian Government. Gioco Digitale cannot serve customers who are residents in the United States or in a country where online gaming activities are illegal according to the laws that apply in that jurisdiction."

Do you have an Italian tax identification number or was your registration attempt useless?

Codice Fiscale is like a PPS Number in Ireland....you must be Italian (or resident in Italy) to have it. The also not accept foreign credit cards (I tried to deposit today and it didn't work) - I will do a bank lodgment insted. Can wait to swim with the fish

pawningomaha

TripleAce wrote: »

Codice Fiscale is like a PPS Number in Ireland....you must be Italian (or resident in Italy) to have it. The also not accept foreign credit cards (I tried to deposit today and it didn't work) - I will do a bank lodgment insted. Can wait to swim with the fish

Does this mean online pokers in italy is only allowed for taxpayin Italians? or just to join this site....

max_power

You can defo play on i-poker in Italy. My mate spent all last year there and was on GJP no probs.

pawningomaha

max_power wrote: »

You can defo play on i-poker in Italy. My mate spent all last year there and was on GJP no probs.

cheers max

TripleAce

max_power wrote: »

You can defo play on i-poker in Italy. My mate spent all last year there and was on GJP no probs.

Problem is, this is not a stand-alone platform and you can play against good players also.

Gioco Digitale is a stand-alone platform very well advertised on the main Italian Newspapers - this only opened for real money back in October 2008 and therefore 90% of the players there would probably be new to poker.

noaces

TripleAce wrote: »

Problem is, this is not a stand-alone platform and you can play against good players also.

Gioco Digitale is a stand-alone platform very well advertised on the main Italian Newspapers - this only opened for real money back in October 2008 and therefore 90% of the players there would probably be new to poker.

Cool but how did you manage to get an Italian tax registration number???

max_power

Yeah but i'd imagine the difficulties of getting on that site combined with lack of traffic wouldn't be very appealing to someone who (I assume) wants to play full time there?

TripleAce

noaces wrote: »

Cool but how did you manage to get an Italian tax registration number???

Italian myself, I forgot I had the Codice Fiscale after so many years away from home. I managed to find it so I could register.

Not sure if there is a way around (ie. enter a dummy one) - I also had problem making a deposit with my Irish CC and had to go to my bank to do a bank transfer today - hopefully it will clear by next week.

Just in case you want to give it a try and enter a dummy one (but not sure it will allow you to register and you may have troubles withdrawing money in case of winnings - so I wouldn't advise doing that), on this website you can get one: http://www.codicefiscale.com/
Enter in order: Surname, First Name, Date of Birth and pick a random Italian city (ie. Milano, Torino, etc)

TripleAce

max_power wrote: »

Yeah but i'd imagine the difficulties of getting on that site combined with lack of traffic wouldn't be very appealing to someone who (I assume) wants to play full time there?

This is true - but I'd like to have 1-2 tables open there along with the standard Full Tilt's games. I also think traffic will get higher as the game grow in popularity. Talking to a friend a lot of poker rooms are opening in Italy at the moment but obviously are years behind the rest of Europe - and I tell you in recession time especially the gambling industry is going to boom in Italy.

insomniak

pawningomaha wrote: »

Thanks for all the info folks, was there a couple of years ago and wasn't able to access any gambling sites, sportsbook or poker. Got government warning website about internet gambling being illegal.

i actually TOTALLY forgot about this, yeah you cant download any poker sites from the proper sites. they wont allow you to download any of them, but if you have them downloaded you can play... messed up i know

when are you heading over? will you be taking your laptop? either take that or some usb over, i had to get a friend to attach them to an email or send it over msn, cant really remember

the WORST part is when they upgrade, you cant download the upgrade so you need someone to send you the new upgrade downloaded and then install it. hope i havent lost you there.
hope that helps

carlop

max_power wrote: »

You can defo play on i-poker in Italy. My mate spent all last year there and was on GJP no probs.

I'll vouch for this

Headspace

as for gioco digitale you can get a legitimate codice fiscale from the italian embassy in Ireland, say you are going there to work. But my concern would be getting money off the site, if i managed to get it off in the first place. The banks in Italy are supposed to be difficult to deal with. I'd like to hear how anybody that tries this gets on.

Glenbhoy

I lived in Italy at the start of the decade for a couple of years and had no problem accessing any gambling sites at all, presumably this legislation is reasonably recent then?
One way of accessing the likes of betfair etc that I've been forced to use when in the US (land of the free my arse, land of the cartel more like) is via the use of proxies, one proxy I've found that works reasonably well is http://www.iprivacytools.com/
It may not be quick enough for online poker, but for accessing betfair etc when restricted it does the job. It costs about $15 for 3 months I think and is the best of these I've used.