France rejects poker liquidity sharing proposal
National Assembly blocks plans for a cross-nation pooling of liquidity, against the advice of ARJEL
French policy makers have rejected a proposed amendment to its gambling laws which would have opened the door to the sharing of liquidity pools with other regulated online poker markets in Europe.
Online poker has struggled across the continent in recent times, particularly in France where a number of operators have pulled out of the country altogether, with a pooling of liquidity seen by many as a possible solution.
However, the rapporteur of the committee on economic affairs Razzy Hammadi blocked the motion, telling the Assembly it would turn online poker into “an uncontrollable ogre eating one market after the other” and that the reason for poker’s travails was that it had “gone a little out of fashion”.
The decision was made despite the Assembly having called on evidence from French gambling regulator ARJEL which favoured the adoption of a liquidity sharing framework.
The Assembly delivered its conclusion shortly after ARJEL director Jean-Francois Vilotte had told a press conference he was to stand down from his role at the regulator.
Although there is no evidence to suggest that Vilotte stood down due to the decision on liquidity sharing, he did make clear he held views contrary to the legislator on this issue and that gambling regulation required a “re-think”.
A source within the French online gambling market told eGaming Review that the industry hasn’t given up hope of the proposal being passed at a later date.
“My gut feeling is that this is not dead in the water but the French Assembly probably still needs more time to understand exactly the implications of the project,” they said.
“Online gaming is still very young in this country and specifically the left wing had always had some sort of a controversial view on the subject but I am still positive that with a little bit more explanation and pedagogy we might see it happen later on.”
Spain and Italy are also known to be considering liquidity pooling with discussions between the two countries held in recent months, while proposed changes to the UK’s licence conditions and codes of practice suggested it too may be open to the idea of shared liquidity.
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