The French Market is now open.
By Caroline on Wednesday 9 June 2010, 14:38 - Betting Legislation - Permalink
After several
months of anticipation, speculation and debate, France officially
opened Tuesday its online gambling market by granting 17 licenses to
11 operators, just three days before the start of the FIFA World Cup in South
Africa - according to a decree published in the Official Journal-. Three types
of online bets will be covered by the new dispensation: for horse
racing, sport betting and online poker. 8 operators will be able to
offer sport betting in France in the coming weeks. 35 applications had been
submitted altogether and between 15 and 20 for sport betting.
ARJEL said operators with a licence for football or sporting bets could start their activities as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday, in time for the World Cup, while the third category – online poker - would get under way at the end of the month following a complaint by Malta to the European Commission. The liberalisation ends 471 years of state monopoly on gambling established by an edict of King Francois I in 1539. Since then gambling has been under the authority of the state which delegated its monopoly to casinos, the national lottery and horse racing body, the PMU.
The majority of operators like Friendbet who have not been granted the licence yet, will have to wait a few weeks to be technically eligible for the licence.
Below is the list of the 11 compliant operators : Betclic Enterprises Limited, Beturf, BES SAS (bwin), Everest Gaming Limited, Française des jeux, France-Pari.fr, Iliad Gaming (Chili), Pmu.fr, Sajoo.fr, Eurosportbet.fr, Table 14 (Winamax)