Italy Has Plan to Tax Casino Profits

There has been an increase in online poker in Italy. Gross amount of wagering has increased from 188 million Euros in 2008 to 200 million Euros in 2009. Considering that this only refers to online poker and only covers one year, it's a significant increaser.

In the first five months of the year, total reported wagers in Italy has reason 9.5 percent to 22 billion euros, according to the state gambling monopoly AAMS. Because of the this obvious growth in interest in gambling online in Italy, the Italian government is now promoting a move that will help the remote gambling industry to acquire more ground. There will be new laws that will extend licensing agreements to include casino poker, in addition to betting services and also wagering on virtual events.

The Chief officer of remote gaming at the Italian state regulator Amministrazione Autonoma dei monopoli dei Stato (AAMS), Francesco Rodano, says that the goal of the projected plan is within the next few months, to submit the proposed laws to the European Commission. He says that they hope to have the new laws in place by the end of 2009.

Rodano adds that the tax levels for the new online games would be established at 20 percent of gross profits tax. This represents a significant increase when compared with the current 4.5 percent tax on gross gaming revenues relating to sports betting.

Rodano says that in tournament poker the State would therefore take 3 percent of gross gaming revenues. But he adds, this would not work for cash games since the casino operator takes a rake off every pot. The solution according to Rodano then is to take the tax off the operators’ profits. This allows them to set the rake at commercially viable levels.

At the present time, Italy is licensing online poker tournament games along with fixed odds sports betting. In Italy online gambling is restricted to Italian gamblers using "internal" networks. Those casino operators who are now seeing an opportunity to expand have begun lobbying the government to make the closed system available to international operators.

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