Online Casino, casinos

Since the beginning of 2009 and the announcement by Eric Woerth about the law on the opening up of the online gaming market, the government has been working night and day to appease the participants in the gaming industry, the “potential” players and of course the state itself. In fact, if this opening up of online gaming signifies that new parts of the market- worth several hundred million euros – will be shared between the different participants, it also means huge revenue for the French state via taxation to come.

For online poker, the government announced at the end of the first quarter 2009 that they were going for a tax on the pots of between 3.5% and 4%. There was an immediate angry response from online players. Jean Francois Lamour, the minister for sport listened to these complaints and brought together a panel of the main participants in online poker, such as the representatives of the online poker room Titan Poker, in order to find a solution that would please everyone (participants and players). Following these different interviews, M. Lamour presented a file to the Finance commission of the National Assembly pointing out that this 4% tax was too high for the players. After having consulted the file, the Commission was favourable to a reduction in this level of taxation which will be 2% on every pot from now on (and not on each bet) with a maximum of one euro per player.

The players won and online poker rooms are smiling again. In fact, this announcement of the lowering of taxation, which must now be validated by the senate, won’t put a brake on players with a tax judged to be too heavy. One of the other consequences may be that as the opening up of the market approaches, poker rooms may be more numerous than previously expected in seeking the precious  licence from the government which has already received almost ten applications including that of Titan Poker, a leading poker room in the most important poker network in Europe.

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