PMU hit with €900,000 fine by French Competition Authority
French horseracing giant in hot water after failing to separate online and retail bets
The French Competition Authority has handed horseracing giant Pari-Mutuel Urbain (PMU) a €900,000 fine for failing to separate online and retail bets.
In France, online betting has been open to competition since 2010, while betting at a physical point of sale is already under the monopoly of PMU.
Complaints made against PMU argued the firm merged recorded bets for both online and physical to increase traffic towards its online site.
PMU therefore failed to adhere to its commitment made in February 2014 to separate online and physical bets.
The French Competition Authority expressed competition concerns in a statement.
The statement continued: “This merger of the masses of issues increased the attractiveness of the horseracing betting offer on the pmu.fr site compared to its competitors and risked affecting the conditions of competition with operators involved in the sale of online betting.”
PMU was also lambasted by the authority for continuing to offer foreign horseracing via partnerships with foreign operators where they failed to separate online and physical bets.
The French Competition Authority noted that PMU currently has five partnerships with South African, Irish, American, Norwegian and Swedish racing, and was found to be offering identical odds for both online and offline.
The Authority’s statement continued: “If it remains possible for the PMU to conclude partnerships on foreign races, these must not result in the merger of its online uploads and its hard uploads, under legal monopoly, in order to respect the commitment made.”
The statement concluded: “Even if foreign races constitute only a limited part of the PMU’s horseracing betting activity, the breach is more serious.”