France outlines iCasino consultation for 2025
The government’s action means online casino regulation will be in 2026 at the earliest.
France is prepared to conduct a six-month consultation to evaluate whether the country will regulate online casino in 2025, thus settling a line under the question of timing and whether the sector could be regulated this year.
The news follows the meeting of French gambling stakeholders that was organised by Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin this week and comes in the wake of its proposal to legalise online casino nearly three weeks ago.
About 50 delegates from the country’s casino, horse racing, and online gambling sectors, along with MPs and representatives from mayoral associations and player protection groups, were present at the event on Wednesday.
It’s beneficial to talk
Industry contacts have observed the government’s openness to recognise and address the topic, something that did not occur under the previous leadership.
The online operator trade body AFJEL once again warned of the scale of the illegal online casino market targeting the country, but its representative Isabelle Djian also hinted at that idea when she told Les Echos she was pleased “a first step had been taken” and that “a form of avoidance” about the issue had come to an end.
Casinos de France President Grégory Rabuel and CdF VP Fabrice Paire reiterated their appeals for only French casinos to be allowed to operate online via ‘digital mirrors’ that would reflect their physical offerings.
Paire again stated that if the market was fully open it would mirror the current online sports betting markets, where three brands control 80% of the market.
“We would be on the starting line, but the contest would be unfair,” he said, and CdF “will not repeat the same mistake it made in 2010” when it allowed online companies that had been operating in the market to enter the regulated market with vast databases that enabled them to build dominant market shares.
Pour et Contre
Gaming&Co understands that while CdF received strong backing from the country’s mayors and local leaders, horse racing operators expressed their disagreement to online casino regulation, while Française des Jeux, much to the surprise of those present in the wake of its acquisition of Kindred Group, expressed strong reservations about it, pointing to the compulsive nature of the games.
In addition to potential dependency issues, those two sectors might also be concerned about how online casino could influence customers’ discretionary spend levels to the disadvantage of horse race betting or scratchcard products.
AFJEL said it would be prepared to establish a support fund that would be shared with the communes, but there are significant doubts as to the sustainability of such systems from both mayors and casinos.
BGC’s unexpected attendance: The UK’s Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), accompanied by bet365 and other major operators, was also present, again much to the surprise of several delegates. It informed the audience that online casino would not have a negative impact on the physical sector and would in fact assist it grow by creating volume and awareness among players.
The gambling regulator ANJ noted that regulating the sector would be “a significant reform” and that it will be reviewing other countries’ online casino regulation model to evaluate their economic and public health outcomes.
In the meantime, the government will establish three working groups, no further detail on what they will evaluate has been provided, to consider the topic as part of its six-month consultation project.
The first three months will decide whether regulation should proceed and the next three months will determine how regulation would be implemented.