When Italy chose to create a regulated online poker market in 2010, they chose to focus on tournaments exclusively and ease in cash games once the market had been established and properly monitored. That decision to delay the introduction of cash games is bearing fruit now as latent demand has stemmed thousands of players to jump into the online cash games since its introduction recently.

The largest of the Italy licensed poker rooms, PokerStars.it has surged to fourth place in the world rankings with an estimated 2500 average cash game players. IPoker.it is also seeing strong cash game turnout rising to 11th place in the world.

Microgaming, who is licensed for a wide range of gaming, was an early adherent whose poker business has grown to over €1,000,000,000 from the poker market alone.

Some have speculated that Italy's more tax friendly approach with operators has been a key difference to neighbor France who has had good demand but struggled to appease operators who struggle with squeezed margins.

The Italian licensed online poker rooms have readily embraced and supported live poker to link the two closely.

With future increased government enforced compliance from non-regulated sites, business could continue to soar.