Poker Forum

Hi,

I have a couple of questions about poker in Italy, I can't find any information about this online. (sorry, I don't speak Italian well enough to understand responses so maybe you can answer this in English. thanks)

1. Is poker legal in Italy? Can I legally rent an apartment f.i. with money I won online?
(you can't in some other european countries btw)

2. What about taxes? If I report poker winnings to the government, how much will they take for taxes?

I found some information here that states that it is legal (but article is couple of months old) http://www.hollywoodpoker.com/green-room/poker-lifestyle/poker-news/online-poker-italy.html

It's a good question .... and unfortunately the answer would be complicated....

You should know that in Italy unfortunately the Italian Monopoly has banned some pr because they didn't get licence to work in territory of Italy... so like Pokerstars and other pr u need to use a trick...

The recent law recognize the poker tournament as legal but u can't receive cash in live game... u need to play in some legal casino in his territory.

So for taxes u should pay to your own country i suppose ... for this information u should u wait a answer from someone else....

Is it legal to play to pr... yes... some pr has licence like Titanpoker, cdpoker, fulltiltpoker.com etc...

Probably is possible to play to no licenced pr... and u can cash out... the problems of those pr... is just a licence .......but i don't know the right answer

I fully agree with Urusee2001

Actually Poker in Italy is illegal in most format except for tournaments which have prize pool that do not exceed the amount of all the buy in payed by players.

All other format, including cash games, can be played in state's casinos only. The money you win here should be declared when you pay taxes (in Italy if you're Italian or according to your local legislation).

Of course you can rent an apartment with money earned from poker - or use it in any other way

the taxes percentage has to be calculated as for all others incoming. We do not have a specific tax for poker.

Thing is, I want to move to Italy for a couple of months (years) and I want to play poker fulltime then. I only make 3-4k€/month so I'm not a bigshot that doesn't have to care about taxes,...

I want to make sure that I can use that poker money to pay rent, buy stuff legally,... because in some other countries poker winnings are illegal and I can't report them to the government (meaning I can't pay rent with it when I graduate because I have no income,...)

thx for answering, I'm going to sum up to make sure I got it right and I hope you can confirm/

1. Live poker is only legal in official casino's. (as in most countries so that's not really a problem)

2. At some pokerrooms it is legal to play online because they have a license. Other rooms are banned (like pokerstars). But with a trick it's possible (but risky)
(this is very good news that some are legal, thanks )

3. I can report my winnings to the Italian government and I will pay income taxes on my profit. What I don't report is illegal money so I should make sure that I report enough to justify my expenses. (by not reporting, I mean not withdrawing)

4.Last one, did anyone ever report anything? (if not, I will assume you made no profit and did not have to )
And how much did you had to pay for taxes?
(if I make my final dicision I will look for professional advise but taxes do mather so if you got an answer that would be great)

I think your answers are pretty positive because I prefer Italy over the other countries and the only one I know that is (almost) tax free is England. But I rather pay taxes and go to Italy, obviously

Thank you very much for answering this (in English) and I hope you can confirm what I wrote here.
grtz

2. "But with a trick it's possible (but risky)" - actually no one law states that it is illegal to play online. Only one decree was signed in to law and it states that internet providers have to not give access to gaming sites. Nothing about playing online and players(if you wanna read more on law check this site www.jamma.it it is about gaming and law).

3. If you are not Italian and your incoming comes from activities not connected to Italian company you do not have to report it for taxes. If you're from EU you'll have nothing to declare at all. If you're from other countries you have to provide a document or bank statement that can prove you can afford to live in Italy.

4. I think most of us made no profit playing online

thank you very much for helping me out here.

I guess I should try to figure out what the income taxes are like in Italy because I think I need to pay income taxes to the Italian government if I live there. (Im EU right now btw)
But that's a question I will find out myself then.

Thanks again for the help and maybe I will come back to this forum when I can talk a bit better in Italian/or live there.

bye