PokerStars Now Heads Italian Online Casino Market

In 2009, PokerStars launched its online product in Italy, which soon became the country’s most popular poker site to visit. In April 2015, the brand then added an online casino to its gambling mix, and once more the move has proved an overwhelming success with the product now also topping the Italian online casino market with an 8.85% share of all revenues.
In addition to offering a fun, safe environment for Italian players to enjoy their favorite gambling games, such as blackjack and roulette, players also have the opportunity to win a €1 million or more jackpot by playing the sites Millionaire’s Island online slot. Furthermore, PokerStars enables its customers to earn extra rewards via its loyalty scheme across all Stars brands and games, and commenting on the overall success of its Italian operation so far, Bo Wänghammar, Managing Director of PokerStars Casino, stated:
“These results show that we are continuously growing and are on track to becoming Italy’s favourite i-gaming destination. However, we don’t just want to match the best casinos out there, we want to surpass them. We plan to continue improving our casino offering including by expanding our selection of top games, enhancing our VIP program, expanding customer acquisition efforts, and introducing an improved mobile casino app.”
In terms of online poker, PokerStars is the country’s biggest operator with a 7-day average of 700 players, and a 24-hour peak of 1,443 cash game players, making PokerStars.it the world’s 12th biggest poker site, according to PokerScout’s Online Poker Traffic Report. Looking forward, even greater prospects lie ahead for the brand as a shared poker liquidity pool agreed between France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy is expected to come into effect either this year, or early next year at the latest.
After several years watching their ring-fenced poker markets wane in popularity, these four countries now accept that combining their individual markets provides the best means of seeing their markets return to growth, as well as providing a viable and safe alternative to unregulated offshore poker sites.