Once in a million we (Italians) are coming first. It's 2 years we have Italian pokerrooms (there's a pokerstars.it too, still waiting for fulltilt.it) only. If you play from Italy you can play only in regular licensed rooms. Government is taking a big income from pokerrooms, assuring a control over the regularity of games (still I think it's possible to bypass it as any computer based system). The worst is we can only play with people from our country. We can only play the tournament and s'n'go mode, not a ring game, because laws are not really clear about it, but it seems we could have the cash game soon. There's the need to know how to calculate the rake for the taxes, as here every game income is free from taxes (you pay taxes when you buy a lottery ticket and if you win you wont pay taxes over the sum won).
Italian gaming laws are one of the advanced in the world, as we not allow any more casinos in our country besides the 4 we have, but every bar/restaurant can host up to 3 slots linked to our government gaming control (AAMS). We cannot have live events outside casinos as the police shutted down every gaming club where texas HM was played, but there's something moving towards regulation of this too. I've heard about some major companies like pokerstars and others to open a franchise of live card rooms, and soon we could have some more live fun. This if Berlusconi keeps the power, if his government fail i fear we will go back to years and nothing will happens.