Home » OCW News » July 2010 » France Fails in Football but Succeeds in Online Gambling

France Fails in Football but Succeeds in Online Gambling

Date published: 15 July 2010

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France's national football squad's poor performance and manners in the 2010 FIFA World Cup may have left hollandaise sauce on the nation's face, but it can hold its head high where online gambling is concerned.

For many years France, like many other stubborn EU member states, refused to bow to pressure from the European Commission (EC) to honour its free trade agreements and legalese and regulate its online gambling industry.

But the French government finally realized that it stood to gain more by legalizing and regulating online gambling then to focus solely on its state-owned gambling monopolies, Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) and La Française des Jeux.

The outcome is that the government liberalized its online gambling industry with the aim of overseeing the industry to ensure its safety for France's multitudes of online gamblers, as well as to generate millions of euros in online gambling taxes.

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Just a few months ago, France's Regulatory Authority of Online Games (ARJEL) started accepting applications for online gambling licenses. And of the 44 applications ARJEL has received, it has granted 23 licenses to 15 operators.

The result is that government tax coffers are already beginning to fill up as over €80 million in bets were made in the first month alone through its licensees. French online gambling fans are also happier with more sites to choose from.

Hopefully countries like France and the UK will act as a guiding light for those countries still 'sitting on the fence' where it comes to the legalization and regulation of their online gambling industries, as the benefits for all are plain to see.