Online Casino, casinos

Jean-Michel Aulas, president of the Olympique Lyonnais (OL), will have to wait several more months before his players can go onto the pitch of any French stadium wearing the logo of their new sponsor on their backs: Betclic (see the article on the OL and Betclic). The president of the OL will have to wait at least seven months before being able to see his players’ jerseys marked with the name of one of Stephane Courbit’s group’s online sites. Casinoweb was present at the conference on online gaming which took place last May at the Maison de la Chimie in Paris. One of the participants asked the proposer of the law, Jean-Francios Lamour, if France would respect the timeframe for the opening, that is the first of January 2010. Lamour let it be understood that this timeframe could be adhered to although the probability was minimal notably because of delays in parliamentary procedure. It has been well confirmed, the first gaming licences granted by the Authority for the Regulation of online Gaming (ARJEL) won’t be given out before the first quarter of 2010. This way, the first 100% French gaming licences will be authorised shortly before the beginning of the football world cup which will take place in South Africa.

In February 2010, the law will be passed and the French licences won’t appear before March 2010. The ARJEL will have a month to analyse the requests of many online poker, sports betting or horse racing groups. The ARJEL will grant an authorisation which will be validated after a year for a period of five years. It doesn’t go without saying that this law is going to be a real headache for France faced with numerous online gaming sites who have been operating for many years in France and of which some won’t request French gaming licences under the pretext that the fiscal conditions are unfavourable when compared with Malta, Gibraltar or Great Britain. Of the 200 online gaming sites which have a good part of the market such as Betclic, Unibet, Bwin, only 33% of the sites will request French licences. The others will prefer to remain illegal and will be considered outlaws and won’t be able to advertise their sites in France. The legal sites could be faced with unfair competition (in the eyes of French law, editor’s note) and could be less competitive than those operating out of Malta or Gibraltar.

The important players in online gaming such as the Alexandre Dreyfus group, Chiligaming (online poker room Chilipoker, editor’s note) are waiting impatiently until the online gaming market opens up in order to benefit fully from his alliance with the Ilyad group (Free). Other participants are waiting for a French gaming licence like the company of the ex- number one in TF1, Patrick Le Lay, Serendipity, which is moving into sports betting. But what about the groups who have been leaders in online gaming matters over a long period like Euro Partners (Titan poker, Titan Bets, Tropez Casino, Bellini Casino etc) or Party Gaming ( Las Vegas Casino, Swiss Casino, Noble Poker etc)? What will they do to promote their online poker sites since online casino sites aren’t yet on the list for discussion on the legislation?

While waiting for the first licences to be delivered, Jean-Michel Aulas, Sebastien Bazin ( president of Colony Capital Europe managing PSG which signed a contract with the online gaming site Unibet, editor’s note), Xavier Nieil (Free), Stephane Courbit and many others interested in entering the French online gaming market will have to be patient and could always take up yoga. The situation could change at the last minute or there could be a delay in the setting up of the ARJEL. To be continued…

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