France Takes Major Step in Online Gambling

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The French Government has crossed the most significant hurdle in implementing a legalized regime of online gambling in the country. The National Assembly passed the bill which seeks to legalize online gambling. The bill had already been passed by the French Senate earlier in the year.

There are still certain steps that remain to be executed. The decrees that detail how the laws will be implemented have been drafted and are already with the European Commission (EC). Now that the bill has passed both the Senate and the Assembly, the EC has to confirm that it accepts the terms stipulated in the decrees. The French Government is hopeful that this will be done by April end. The Minister is likely to sign the decrees in May, which will make the law effective. ARJEL has been appointed as the regulator of the licensing regime. It has already posted the requirements that an online gaming operator applying for a license will have to fulfill. Once the law becomes effective the process of receiving and scrutinizing applications will resume. Budget Minister François Baroin explained that a wild and anarchist black market for Internet gambling exists in France today. He said, “This law will allow us to gradually purify the black market of online gaming by creating a legal alternative.”

Though the bill was passed in the National Assembly, the passage was not unopposed. Gaetan Gorce, the spokesperson for the Socialist Left wing opposition parties said, “We have never examined a bill under such obvious and intense pressure from lobbies expecting a new law to satisfy their financial interests.” They have threatened to take the matter to the Constitutional Court.

Greater opposition is expected to come from agencies like the Remote Gambling Association (RGA), which have been clamoring for a truly free online gambling market across Europe. According to the RGA the French bill falls far short of the European Union (EU) rules. However everyone is under pressure to meet the deadline of the Football World Cup in June and the RGA fears that the EC may accept the licensing system proposed. The RGA is of the opinion that the decrees would contain clauses that would make the offerings of private online gaming operators uncompetitive, particularly those from outside France, and would protect the interests of the state owned gambling operators. The RGA has said that if the terms as laid out in the bill are not truly competitive, it would continue to pursue all avenues of redress open to it.

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