Make your customers re-register, French govt to tell operators

OPERATORS THAT HAVE taken bets from French customers might be forced to re-register their existing French players when online gaming laws in France come into effect next year.

The measure is one of up to 1,000 amendments that have been put forward by politicians and interested parties ahead of the three days of debate the regulation will undergo in France’s National Assembly this week.

If enacted, the rule would force operators such as Unibet or Betclick to force their thousands of current French customers to re-register from scratch. In addition, they would not be allowed to encourage or incentivise those players to re-open an account with them.

Both companies and others are thought to be fighting the measure but are also preparing for the possibility.

The issue, which will be debated today, tomorrow and Friday, was introduced into the draft regulation after pressure from operators that have not been active in France until now but that wish to begin trading on the same basis as operators that already have a big market share in France.

The French monopolies Francaise des Jeux and Pari Mutuel Urbain are also thought to have been much encouraged by the ECJ ruling in the Bwin-Santa Casa case against the Portugese monopoly which supported legal protection of the state monopoly if governments deem it necessary for the public interest, and have been lobbying to only authorise pool betting on all sports betting products, rather than only on horse racing while allowing fixed odds on sports such as football as originally proposed.

As reported on EGRmagazine.com, the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) hit out at other aspects of the draft regulation yesterday, saying that it does not benefit consumers and remains in breach of EU law.

For more on this topic, see our March feature on the new French regulations.