Wednesday, PokerStars.com announced the launch a new site made specially for Italian players: PokerStars.it. The announcement comes just days after the Amministrazione Autonome dej Monopoli di Stato granted PokerStars a license to operate the site.

PokerStars.it players will be able to enter online tournaments with fees ranging from €0,50 to €100. They will also have the chance to play their way into headline events like the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

"These competitions (will) require players to have the right mix of skill, concentration and luck," Team PokerStars Italian pro Dario Minieri said.

Minieri is a major celeb in the Italian poker community after beginning his career online and racking up enough points to cash in for a Porche. After striking paydirt in both the EPT and the WSOP, Team PokerStars added him to its roster in 2007 - a wise decision in hindsite since Minieri took home this year's WSOP bracelet.

The company predicts that PokerStars.it will draw thousands, a sentiment supported by online firms Microgame and Gioco Digitale. The two companies operate linking sites and reported that hundreds of thousands of real-money, Italian players flocked to their sites after they expanded their hours in September. PokerStars estimates that Italy's newly legalized Internet-gambling market will draw some 500,000 new players in the first year alone - bringing in nearly €400 million annually.

"PokerStars is proud to be entering a flourishing market with this new product," PokerStars.it manager Fabio Angeli Butalini said. "This is the start of a global template, which could potentially be adapted in other markets internationally in the next few years."

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