Full Tilt and PKR among nine new French licences

French egaming regulator ARJEL last night approved a further nine licences including Full Tilt Poker, PKR and Ladbrokes’ Canal Win sports betting joint venture.

Land-based casino giant Barrière also received a licence to offer its newly developed poker product into the French market. Barrière will provide poker for former lottery and sports betting monopoly Francaise des Jeux, currently scheduled for launch in the autumn.

New poker licence holders Ad Astra and Full Fun will join 888 and Microgaming’s recently announced joint poker network targeting the French market.

French pari-mutuel horse race betting site Zeturf, which has signed a letter of intent with as-yet-unlicensed Unibet to pool horse racing liquidity, also received its licence yesterday.

Earlier this month Ladbrokes announced Nick D’Ancona and Canal+’s François Deplanck would head up the JV between the bookmaker and France’s largest premium pay TV provider, announced in April.

Yesterday’s wave of licence approvals takes the total number to date issued by the French regulator to 27.

The nine licences issued yesterday were as follows:
CanalWin* (canalwin.fr, canal-win.fr): sports betting
Jeux 365 (paris365.fr, jeux365.fr, poker365.fr, football365.fr): sports betting
Geny Infos (genbet.fr); pari-mutuel horse betting
Zeturf France (zeturf.fr): pari-mutuel horse betting
FullFun (pokerxtrem.fr): poker
LB Poker (barrierepoker.fr): poker
AD Astra (pokersubito.fr): poker
PKR France SAS (pkr.fr): poker
Rekop (fulltiltpoker.fr): poker
* joint venture between Canal+ and Ladbrokes