The government of Italy is moving toward the regulation of the online gambling industry. As of January 1, 2007, it will be legal for Italian citizens to gamble online. The new law also clears the line for public sports betting and bingo parlors.

The Italian plan was patterned with that of the U.K. plan with respect to how the entities that do business in Italy are regulated. That is, if an online gambling company does business with Italian customers, the government will stand to make a 3% tax on any gaming based revenues acquired by that company.

This seems to be the direction many countries around the world are heading, with the model in the U.K. seeming to be stable, and sustainable.

This new law in Italy has led many to speculation that the online gaming industry will launch an all out blitz trying to grab market share in the newly opened market.

The billion dollar question is will the US government follow suit? The Anti-Online Gambling Bill is now pending at the US Senate, meanwhile online gambling companies are becoming weary of accepting bets from US gamblers. As the arrests of top online betting company executives, David Carruthers (BetOnSports) and Peter Dicks (Sportingbet) sent chills within the industry.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Casino News, Gambling Industry News, Online Bookies, Online Casino, Online Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.