bwin.party CEO demands ARJEL clampdown
Norbert Teufelberger, co-CEO of bwin.party, calls on French regulator to act immediately against non-French licensed sports betting operators such as Bet365.
bwin.party co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger has called for French regulator ARJEL to act immediately against large non-French licensed sports betting operators active in the market, with particular reference to Bet365.
Speaking at bwin.party’s first results presentation following the completion of the merger and in the wake of last week’s clampdown on 5Dimes by French authorities, Teufelberger said: “They [French regulator ARJEL] have not done the job they promised us to do, in protecting licence holders, effectively. You may have seen they have started to take steps against some minor operators. But obviously there are some big operators, still operating we believe in France, and one of them is Bet365.
“We are complaining to the regulator there. I would tend to believe that ultimately we will be right. Like the American example has shown, it took us five years. I hope the French are going to be a bit faster.”
In response to a question from analyst Ivor Jones of Numis on how competitors such as Bet365 were able to market in France, given their non-licensed status, Teufelberger said:
“They cannot necessarily market in the same way, we do, but they can market by PR. The problem is they are just one click away. The odds key difference [due to the high turnover tax levied on licensed operators] is so substantial in France, it very easy for a customer to see that he can get much better offers from non-licensed operators.
“That advantage goes away if that difference becomes marginal, because consumers don’t care if they get a 2-3% better price, but they do care whether they get a 50% better price. News on the net travels very fast these days, through blogs, forums, and so forth. That’s the way you can market those products in those markets.”
Teufelberger said that he believed that only a third of sports betting activity occurred within the regulated market in France, due to the high taxation levied by French authorities. “We don’t have any official numbers, but I would tend to believe [that] maybe 85-90% of business [in Italy] is done by regulated operators, whereas in France, on the sports betting side, we would believe that not more than 30% is run by French-facing business run by licence holders. French regulator ARJEL is aware of that.”
On whether he thought discussions underway with French politicians over changing the tax regime would bear fruit before next year’s French elections, Teufelberger said: “We don’t know. But they are worth it, and there are discussions with politicians underway on that topic as well.”