French gambling regulator survives dissolution scare
The country’s National Assembly votes against an amendment to a draft bill proposing to scrap ARJEL
France’s online gambling regulator has survived proposals to scrap the body after the National Assembly yesterday voted against a bill amendment designed to reduce its number of independent authorities.
The amendment to a draft law proposed to merge Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL) into another independent body or directly through the state administration.
It would also have led to the dissolution of the press regulator ARDP if it had received approval from both the National Assembly and the Senate.
The draft law – which has no direct connection to gambling legislation – aims to improve French administration efficiency by scaling down or reforming the number of independent authorities in the country.
National Assembly member Jean-Luc Warsmann of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party tabled the amendment after attempts to introduce a similar amendment earlier this year.
“This MP’s intention is understandable from a pure accounting/efficiency point of view but the move expected by anyone would be rather to improve the gambling regulation through one unique body,” Unibet’s country manager for France, Julien Brun, told EGR Intel.
“[This] is the position of many MP’s, the government and even operators,” Brun added.
The French online gambling sector remains the third biggest regulated market in Europe after recording €756m in annual revenues in 2015.
However last year the online market made an overall loss of €4m.