Committee calls on ARJEL to implement stricter social gaming regulations
Independent body calls for stricter controls on social games " suggests that social networks should be forced to operate under dot.fr licences.
An independent committee formed by L’Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL) has called upon the French regulator to implement stricter controls on social gaming operators.
In a series of recommendations submitted to ARJEL late last week the committee, chaired by ARJEL board members Laurent Sorbier and Jean-Luc Pain, aired a series of concerns about the close links between free-to-play social casino games and real-money gambling.
The committee explained that as companies are able to run both social and real-money offerings, there was danger that the social games could be used as an acquisition funnel for the egaming brands. As a result it recommended that a classification system for games be introduced to ensure that none of the social games offered via social networks contravened French egaming legislation.
It went on to call for a legislative framework be developed to effectively regulate real-money gaming via such networks, “taking into account the technical characteristics” of such platforms. The committee went as far as to suggest that social networks such as Facebook should operate under a dot.fr licence to allow them to be effectively regulated.
The committee was formed in February last year with the remit to explore ways to expand and improve key areas of the current regulatory framework including protecting player funds and licensing skill games. It includes a number of business leaders among its members, including Philippe Bailly, president and CEO of media consulting agency NPA Conseil; divisional commissioner of the Ministry of the Interior Stéphane Tijardovic; Comptroller of the general council of industry, energy and technology at the Ministry of the Economy Dominique Varenne; and Franck Veysset, head of the national agency of the security of information systems (CERTA).
Its findings come after ARJEL introduced a series of restrictions on which sporting events French-licensed operators are able to offer odds, with players blocked from betting on a number of football, basketball, handball and volleyball leagues.
The regulator’s president Jean-François Vilotte has also admitted that changes to poker legislation may be forthcoming, saying in January that he was open to the possibility of pooling liquidity with other jurisdictions. The country’s poker market has suffered more than any other regulated product vertical, with a number of operators including 888 and TitanPoker handing back their French poker licences as a result.