There are 4.3 million Italians interested in playing on the internet, corresponding to 11% of Italians between 14 and 64 years of age. This is the conclusion of the survey "Poker in Italy - an analysis of the operation, spread and image of the game" carried out by StageUp Sport & Leisure Business, a research and consultancy company, and by Ipsos.

Currently there are 670,000 players on-line, but after legalising games of skill on the web such as poker, the national mania for the green baize could rise exponentially even among those who say they have never played before, but think they are ready to take the plunge: according to the research that is as many as 1.7 million Italians.

The typical potential player on the internet is under 34, lives in the south of Italy and in the islands and mainly in towns of over 30,000 inhabitants. The phenomenon of "poker sportivo" is all the rage not only on the web: as also revealed in the research, poker in all its variations is a mass phenomenon with a strong growth.

In Italy, the number of habitual players, i.e. those who say they play regularly or regularly enough, has more than doubled, reaching 970,000 in June 2008 against 480,000 in February 2007. The sharp rise in the number of players is mainly due to awareness and the spread of "poker sportivo" and in particular of the Texas Hold'em variant through television. 18 months ago 1.7 million Italian knew of this type of game, that originated in the United States; by June 2008 the number had risen to a little over 5 million, an increase of 188%.

While nearly one million Italians play poker repeatedly, another 14.5 million (representing nearly 37% of Italians between 14 and 64 years of age) have played at least once.

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