Need to know: an irony Francais
Today's two stories about France aren't just good news for operators and punters alike, we argue, but present the prospect of a delicious irony surrounding France's monopoly operators...
ZUT ALORS! Two nice stories from France today, mes amis, the first that operators in France will no longer be forced to shut down their player accounts before being granted a licence this year.
This welcome relief follows an earlier measure to force operators wanting to be licensed in France to close their current French customers’ accounts from the time the law is voted until the licences are awarded, which was passed in October 2009 but revoked by the French Senate this week.
The development is good news for operators with major market share in France such as Betclic, Bwin and Unibet, and will be welcomed by everyone else that has made any progress in building market share in Gaul ahead of that market’s opening later this year.
Everyone bar two, that is: monopoly providers Francaise Des Jeux (FDJ) and Pari-Mutuel Urbain (PMU, whose dominant position the shut downs were widely interpreted as really being intended to allow time to defend.
Still, bad news though that is for them, they can at least rest assured that they have at least made some progress in preparing for the market to open. Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) signed a sponsorship deal with French football federation Federation Francaise De Football earlier this month, following its having revealed it would offer fixed odds sports betting in France in May last year, and its deal with Paddy Power to provide PMU with fixed-odds risk management and pricing tools in December.
But what’s this? Our other France story today is that Francaise Des Jeux has chosen betting software provider LVS to deliver it with a fixed-odds sports betting platform.
This is a good gig for LVS, considering its size and experience compared to that of rivals such as Finsoft and Orbis that are likely to have bid for the work, and has the company already pledging to pursue more of the same. But more importantly, the deal raises the prospect of France’s two monopolies going tete a tete against each other in France’s newly regulated egaming market.
This will be good for French punters, forcing all concerned to offer better prices and better products. But it also offer a splendid irony: the thought of two former monopolies being forced not only to compete with newcomers on a level playing field, but even to compete with each other…
Au revoir for this week.
PS: we’re now on Twitter, ‘@egamingreview’.