Planning a Poker Trip to Italy: The Live Events and Destinations Worth Knowing
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Italy is an easy country to put on a travel list. Good food, historic cities, coastlines, lakes and excellent transport connections already make it one of Europe's most popular destinations. For poker players, however, there is another reason to look at the map: Italy still has a varied live poker scene, with casino rooms, local clubs and major tournament festivals spread across different parts of the country.
Planning a poker trip to Italy is slightly different from travelling to a destination such as Las Vegas or Rozvadov, where poker itself can be the entire reason for the journey. In Italy, the better approach is often to start with a specific tournament or confirmed game and build the trip around it.
Poker schedules can change, cash games are not necessarily running every day and the country's poker activity is spread across several cities rather than concentrated in one major hub. Before booking flights and hotels, it therefore makes sense to check both the current poker rooms in Italy and our upcoming poker series calendar.
If the dates line up, however, Italy can offer something few poker destinations can match: the chance to combine a serious tournament schedule with a trip that would be worth making even if you never saw a flop.
Start with the poker calendar, not the destination
The first decision is whether the trip is being built around tournament poker, cash games or simply the possibility of playing a session while visiting Italy.
For tournament players, the easiest option is to identify a festival first. A published series gives you fixed dates, buy-ins, starting times and usually enough information to plan accommodation around the days you expect to play. Larger festivals also tend to produce more side events, satellites and cash-game activity while they are running.
Cash-game trips require a little more care. A room may list regular stakes without guaranteeing that every table runs every day. The difference between a scheduled game and a game that is actually running matters when you have travelled hundreds of kilometres to play it.
We currently list poker locations across a wide range of Italian cities, from Venice and Sanremo to Milan, Rome, Turin and Bari. The important thing is not simply finding a poker-room listing but checking the current schedule, game type, blinds, buy-in and contact information before travelling.
Venice: a poker trip in one of Europe's most unusual settings
Few poker destinations can compete with Venice for atmosphere.
The city is already unlike anywhere else in Europe, but poker players also have the Casinò di Venezia, one of the best-known names in Italian casino poker. The Casino di Venezia listing includes poker activity at Ca' Noghera as well as major tournaments hosted at the historic Ca' Vendramin Calergi venue.
In October 2026, Venice becomes particularly interesting because La Notte Degli Assireturns from 11 to 19 October with a €1 million guaranteed Main Event. The full La Notte Degli Assi schedule includes multiple starting flights, satellites, a side event and a €1,500 High Roller before the Main Event reaches its final table on 19 October.
The structure also makes the festival suitable for players with very different budgets. The programme currently includes early Main Event flights listed at €400, later flights at €600, a €60 Mega Satellite, a freeroll satellite awarding Main Event tickets and the €1,500 High Roller. Main Event starting flights use a 200,000-chip stack, with structures varying by flight.
It is also the kind of festival where the event extends beyond the tables. NetWin.News has been selected as Official Media Partner for La Notte Degli Assi, with coverage expected to include interviews, behind-the-scenes content and a livestream of the final table.
That makes Venice an obvious example of how to build a poker trip properly. Instead of arriving and hoping to find a tournament, you already know when the series runs, what games are available and which Day 1 fits the rest of your travel plans.
There is another advantage: busting a tournament in Venice is not exactly the worst way to suddenly find yourself with a free afternoon.
Sanremo: one of the traditional homes of Italian poker
If Venice offers one of the most distinctive settings, Sanremo has one of the strongest poker histories in Italy.
The Ligurian city became internationally familiar to poker players during the years in which it hosted major European events, and Casino Sanremo remains an obvious destination to check when planning an Italian poker trip.
Our Casino Sanremo page lists a dedicated Texas Hold'em room and regular cash-game structures ranging from €2/€5 upward. As always, the fact that a game is listed as regular should not be treated as a guarantee that a table will be running at the moment you arrive, so confirming current action in advance is sensible.
Tournament players also have a concrete date to consider later in 2026. We currently list a WSOP Circuit festival in Sanremo from 20 to 30 November 2026.
That makes Sanremo particularly suitable for players who prefer to plan around a proper festival rather than a single tournament. A ten-day schedule gives more flexibility to choose when to arrive, which events to play and how much of the trip should actually be devoted to poker.
The location helps as well. Sanremo sits on the Ligurian coast close to the French border, which makes it possible to combine poker with a broader Riviera trip rather than treating the journey purely as a casino visit.
Milan and Campione: a useful base in northern Italy
Milan works differently. It is not primarily a casino destination, but for international visitors it is one of Italy's easiest cities to reach and can work as a practical base for exploring poker in the north. You can find several poker rooms in Milan and the surrounding area, with Casino Campione d'Italia also among the regional options.
Campione d'Italia deserves particular attention from tournament players. The Italian enclave on Lake Lugano has again hosted substantial poker events since the casino returned to the live-poker calendar. Earlier in 2026, for example, the Italian Poker Challenge ran there with a €700,000 guaranteed Main Event, while several stages of the Italian Series of Poker have also been held at the venue.
This creates an interesting type of poker trip. Instead of staying beside the casino for the entire visit, a player could use northern Italy as the basis for a broader journey and travel specifically for a festival when the calendar makes sense.
The important point is distance. Campione is not in central Milan, so it should not be treated as another city-centre poker room. If the casino is the main reason for the trip, transport and accommodation should be planned around the actual venue rather than simply booking a hotel beside Milano Centrale and assuming everything is nearby.
What about Rome and the rest of Italy?
A holiday to Italy does not have to be built around one of the major casino destinations.
Our Italian directory includes listings in cities and areas such as Rome, Turin, Bari, Genoa, Verona, Padua, Pescara and several others. For someone already travelling through the country, checking the local listings can therefore reveal opportunities to add a poker night to the itinerary.
The approach should be different from Venice during La Notte Degli Assi or Sanremo during a major series, however. A city having a poker-club listing does not necessarily mean that the exact game you want will be running when you arrive.
If poker is only an extra activity during a holiday, that may not matter. If you are travelling specifically to play, it does.
Confirm the game first and book the poker trip second.
Read the tournament structure before booking the flight
The guarantee naturally attracts attention, but it should not be the only number you look at.
When comparing Italian tournaments, check the starting stack, blind levels, late-registration period, re-entry rules and number of starting flights. Two tournaments with similar buy-ins can provide completely different playing experiences.
La Notte Degli Assi is a good example. The Main Event includes several starting days and a 200,000-chip starting stack, but not every flight uses the same structure. Some have 30-minute levels, while the turbo starting flight uses 15-minute levels.
That matters when choosing a flight. A player arriving late in the week might technically still have access to the Main Event but find themselves entering through a considerably faster structure than somebody who planned the trip around an earlier Day 1.
Re-entry rules matter for the travel budget too. A €600 tournament does not necessarily mean that €600 is the maximum you could spend on the Main Event. Add another bullet, satellites and side events, and the poker budget can change quickly.
The same principle applies to accommodation. If your plan assumes reaching Day 3 but you bust on Day 1, you suddenly have several nights in Italy with no tournament to play. Sometimes that is a very good problem to have, but it is worth considering before making non-refundable bookings.
Tournament trip or cash-game trip?
The distinction changes almost everything. A tournament trip is easier to schedule. You know approximately when you need to arrive and can identify the important days before leaving home. The downside is variance: one early bustout can completely change the week.
A cash-game trip offers more freedom. You can choose your hours and leave whenever you want, but game availability becomes more important. Stakes listed by a room are only useful if enough players are actually sitting at the table.
Players travelling primarily for cash should therefore check a few things in advance:
- what stakes normally run;
- which days tend to produce the most action;
- the minimum and maximum buy-in;
- the rake structure;
- whether reservations or waiting lists are used;
- when the poker room opens and closes.
For tournament players, replace those questions with starting flight, structure, fees, re-entry conditions and late registration. A five-minute check before travelling can save a wasted poker night.
Do not forget the costs outside the card room
Poker players are understandably good at calculating buy-ins and surprisingly capable of forgetting everything around them. A poker trip has a real cost beyond the table. Flights or trains, hotel nights, local transport, food and potential re-entries all belong in the same budget.
This matters particularly in destinations such as Venice, where accommodation costs can vary dramatically depending on dates and location. If you are playing a multi-day series, staying conveniently close to the venue may be worth paying more for, especially if a session finishes late.
The same applies to arrival day. Flying into Italy a few hours before the Main Event starts may save one hotel night, but one delayed flight can cost an entire tournament entry. For an event that is the main purpose of the journey, arriving the day before is usually the less stressful option.
You should also check the venue's identification and entry requirements before leaving the hotel. Casino policies can differ, and turning up without the required ID is a particularly avoidable bad beat.
Build some non-poker time into the schedule
It sounds obvious, but poker travellers often make the same mistake: they visit a great destination and spend almost the entire trip inside a card room. Italy is one of the worst countries to do that.
If you are going to Venice, leave time to actually see Venice. If the tournament is in Sanremo, the Ligurian coast is outside the casino door. A northern trip involving Campione can easily include Milan, Lake Como or the Lugano area.
There is also a practical poker argument for this. Long tournament festivals create days where you may not need to play. You might qualify for Day 2 and have a free day between flights, skip an event because the structure does not suit you or simply need a break after several long sessions.
Planning something beyond poker means those gaps become part of the trip rather than dead time waiting for the next tournament.
Is Italy worth a poker trip?
Italy is not a destination where you should land in any major city and assume that a full poker room will be waiting every night. That is exactly why planning matters.
For tournament players, events in Sanremo and festivals at Campione d'Italia can provide a clear reason to travel. For cash-game players or visitors who simply want to add a session to a holiday, our local room listings offer a starting point, but checking the current action before travelling remains essential.
The best Italian poker trip therefore starts with two calendars: the tournament schedule and your travel itinerary. When the two line up, you do not have to choose between a poker trip and a trip to Italy.
You can have both.
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