Trucco: (Pokerstars) at Ice 2016: 'Poker towards new horizons thanks to mobile too'
Read the words of Marco Trucco, Pokerstar's country manager for Italy, in the margins of the Gioco News seminar at Ice 2016
Scritto da Redazione
"Italian market is a super regulated market, but at the same time open both to the needs of operators and to innovation". Words of Marco Trucco, Pokerstar's country manager for Italy, in the margins of the Gioco News seminar at Ice 2016, called 'Online gaming between the success of regulation against illegality and new business opportunities'.
"We are lucky to have good partners in State Monopolies that listen our needs for innovation. With Spin & Go, for example, we were able to do an integration with current rules, gaining experience from abroad."
We speak of online poker as a market in crisis, it is the truth? "Poker has suffered from the fact that all other games arrived on the web, but I would not speak of crisis. This game had a moment of ''grace” for a number of factors, but we must remember that poker role is not to be an online ruler. It 's a very different game from the traditional ones, which requires study, passion, skill and therefore has a base of very specific users. Our task is to innovate, trying to match it to new concepts and mechanisms. We need to find forms of poker, for example, acting as 'learning' channels, available through the mobile channel. Innovations that we are testing are aimed at integrating faster games to be played on the mobile. Spin & Go is one of these innovations, but shortly we will launch even more."
As for casinos, what can you tell us? "They are included among that gaming category where the relationship with luck is faster and more direct and that is the main driver that leads people to play, unlike poker. However, this remains our core business."
Certainly, online poker is a sensitive subject, where there is still no regulation. "Live would be an important element if we overcome its regulatory chaos. We hope that we will soon have a rule contemplating also this game, giving clear and certain rules."
Also international liquidity is at a standstill, despite the interest shown by Italy for that topic. "The only thing we can effectively do is give our technical contribution to regulators. To provide a framework to form the basis for this very important passing for online poker, but not only. We can suggest a way to make it possible and we, as Pokerstars, are studying the various regulations to produce a technical document for internal use that can be used as a contribution by various regulators."