French National Assembly Refuses Common Regulated Market

In less than 20 minutes, the French National Assembly rejected the ARJEL-supported proposal of the opposition to join a common regulated market with Italy and Spain.

French online gambling regulatory body ARJEL recognized the inability of the 2010 regulations to meet the expectations as far as online poker is concerned a long time ago. After the segregation of the market, player numbers started dropping instantly, resulting in an ever diminishing income for rooms and, consequently, the state. French players are only allowed to play in .fr poker rooms and the lower liquidity resulted in a further drop.

ARJEL has been negotiating the possibility of a common regulated market with representatives of other segregated fields. In France, this would have required an amendment to the 2010 law but the National Assembly rejected the bill proposed by the opposition in less than 20 minutes. Even though they asked for the professional council of ARJEL, they disregarded the opinion of the body altogether.

Razzy Hammadi, a politician known to have spoken several times against online gambling before, said it was merely the low popularity of online poker that caused the drop in income, as it had simply gone out of fashion. “I am opposed because it brings to mind the idea of an ogre becoming uncontrollable and that, to continue to grow, it must be nurtured with ever greater market liquidity in ever greater quantities,” he added.

Another oppose of the proposal, Benoit Hamon argued that a common market would increase the risk of running illegal financial activities, including money laundering.

Opposition member and bill proposer Damien Abad commented bitterly the following:

“You yourselves requested an opinion from ARJEL ... which said very clearly that we can achieve a controlled opening and maintain regulated poker tables. But in reality, you do not want this. Those players leaving today are regular poker players … they will turn to illegal sites.”

ARJEL Head Jean-Francois Vilotte, who is to leave the body soon, said it would be difficult to continue to support online poker in the current political climate, as the antipathy was clear and it would take a lot of time for that to change significantly.

Head of the Spanish regulatory body DGOJ, Carlos Hernandez, on the other hand, remains optimistic that a common market can be established in early 2014, if nothing else, with the cooperation of his home and Italy.