ARJEL president keen on pooled poker liquidity
Jean-François Vilotte confirms French regulator advocates changes after admitting dot.fr poker demand "has not exploded".
ARJEL president Jean-François Vilotte has confirmed that the French regulatory authority is open to the possibility of pooling liquidity with other jurisdictions, after demand for a dot.fr online poker market has failed to “explode” as hoped.
Last week’s full-year market figures showed amounts staked in cash poker games down by 5.4% year-on-year (based on like-for-like comparatives), while nine poker licensees handed back their licences over the course of 2012.
Among those to leave the market include 888 and TitanPoker, with the latter also surrendering its sports betting licence in the jurisdiction.
Vilotte said: “Especially for poker, the question of the attractiveness of the offer must be monitored. It is a matter of concern.”
He added that: “ARJEL advocates the opening of the offer of legal new variants of poker and pooling cash poker tables to allow French players to play with foreign players if they play on sites regulated by European authorities with which agreements have been previously passed by ARJEL and implementing regulatory standards at least equivalent.”
While such a process would require amendments to existing regulations, ARJEL has been in communication with a number of other European regulators over the sharing of information.
Last month the French regulator, along with corresponding bodies in Italy, Spain and Portugal, set up an informal association designed to share market data as well as coming together to discuss regulatory standards and address issues around match-fixing in sport.
The four parties pledged at the time to look at the potential of pooled liquidity, and this is among the topics which will potentially be revisited at the association’s first meeting in Lisbon in the first half of this year. Vilotte also confirmed that German regulatory authorities had been invited to communicate with the quartet.
Since the publication of the French market figures, eGaming Review has also learned that a number of Spanish poker operators are preparing to return their licences after just six months, having become concerned by the lack of liquidity on dot.es networks.
Elsewhere in his statement, Vilotte addressed last year’s EC action plan on online gambling, which pointed the way towards a clampdown on regimes not compliant with EU law, and said: “Pending convergence at EU level to a high level of regulation, national regulations have their place and should be usefully complemented by bilateral agreements, binding on States having compatible goals in protecting their home markets.”