Poll results: French market 'has failed'
As more operators withdraw from France, just 6% of readers think the dot.fr market has been a success.
Barely two years have passed since the first dot.fr egaming licences were issued by French regulator ARJEL, but the majority of eGaming Review readers are already prepared to write off the market as a failure.
Earlier this week four more operators – including Snai and Titan – saw requests granted for regulatory authority ARJEL to repeal their licences, and 62% of those polled believe the market has failed.
Despite the positive performance from the sports betting and horse betting verticals, whose figures are boosted by former monopolies, just 6% of readers have deemed the French opening a success. Poker declined 11% year-on-year in the most recent set of ARJEL figures, with a multitude of operators either merging (like MyPok and PokerXtrem) or leaving the market altogether (like TitanPoker).
Declining poker figures may encourage ARJEL to forge ahead with discussions with other European regulators with the possible end-goal of pooling liquidity across more than one jurisdiction.
The regulatory body has an existing memorandum of understanding with its equivalent Italian body AAMS, which Spanish regulator DGOJ is in talks to join.
Furthermore, the three regulators were joined last year by Portuguese regulator and monopoly operator Santa Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa, with the four bodies holding preliminary discussions over a shared regulatory framework which could incorporate measures to pool liquidity.
Perhaps influenced by such developments, 33% of eGR readers were of the belief that – while the country’s egaming market has run into some difficulties – the situation in France would improve.