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France Poised to Open Online Gambling Market

Date published: 25 September 2009

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An announcement this week that the French government is planning to open its lucrative online gambling market in 2010 to foreign gaming firms, was received with jubilation by many large UK gambling companies, including PartyGaming Plc, William Hill Plc and 888 Holdings Plc.

The welcome move could come about as early as October, when a bill aimed at allowing offshore gambling concerns to offer online sports betting and poker services to French online gamblers is brought before the French parliament. If the bill is passed, it will change the face of French gambling forever.

The reason is that for as long France's millions of gambling fans can remember, all gambling activities in the country - including horserace betting - has gone through Groupe Francaise des Jeux and Pari Mutuel Urbain, the state-owned monopoly. The proposed bill will give French gambling fans more choice.

Said PartyGaming CEO, Jim Ryan, about France's proposed online gambling bill, 'We are excited at the prospect as the size of France's population and its large appetite for gambling, added to our company's historically cautious approach to the country, makes this a particularly exciting opportunity for us.'

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According to a group of UK financial consultants, if the bill goes through by the middle of next year, revenues generated by French online gambling could feasibly double from their current levels to over 670 million euros. Further, in 2011 the French gambling market could be worth as much as 1 billion euros.

The reason that France's famously stubborn government is proposing to make these big changes to its gambling market is two-fold. One, it has finally succumbed to ongoing pressure from the European Commission (EC) to reform its gambling industry and put it more in line with European Union (EU) directives.

Two, it is seeking to address the problem of over 25,000 illegal online gambling websites - 25 per cent of which are French - that are being frequented by French citizens. But whatever the reasons, the move should be symbiotic one for the French government, French gamblers and foreign online gaming companies.