France votes in online gambling laws
France's National Assembly has voted in favour of legalising online gambling, all but opening up the country's market to international operators - most likely in time for the football World Cup this summer.
FRANCE’S National Assembly has voted in favour of a bill to legalise online gambling, all but officially opening up the French market to international operators.
The bill, which passed a first reading by the Senate in February, remains only to be approved by the European Union and France’s Conseil d’Etat (Supreme Court) and Conseil Constitutionnel (Constitutional Council), meaning that French citizens are likely to be able to place online sports bets ahead of the football World Cup this summer.
In a statement budget minister François Baroin said he was “convinced this solution will allow us to gradually drain the black-market of online gaming by creating a legal alternative”.
Monopolies La Francaise Des Jeux (FDJ) and Pari-Mutuel Urbain (PMU) have both taken significant measures to enhance both their brands and their product offerings.
FDJ, the French national lottery operator and the second largest lottery operator in the world, acquired LVS last month, the betting software supplier that in January won the contract to deliver fixed-odds sports betting online for FDJ once the French online sports betting market opens.
PMU, the largest horse racing monopoly in Europe, signed a deal for PartyGaming to provide it with an online poker product last month, its second tie with a high-profile egaming operator after November’s agreement for Paddy Power to provide it with fixed-odds risk management and pricing tools.
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