New gambling laws in France have been amended by the government and dislocated the French online gambling market. This news comes just a few weeks ago France decided to relax their online gambling market.

 

So it comes to a surprise that France amended their new regulation and outlawed sport betting sites including Betfair, which has been in the industry since the year 2000. The new amendment asks bookmakers to get an exclusive license issued by the government and not allow players to lay bets or place them. Bookmakers also have to contribute a portion of their winnings towards sports.

 

Sites like Betfair are breaking the new requirement and cannot enter the French Market legally as players are allowed to place and lay bets as well as bet against each other. Betfair considers the move as discrimination and are warning to submit a complaint with the EU.

 

Mark Davies, Betfair’s managing director, said: “We will consider our position. It is fairly clearly discriminatory against the biggest and most competitive online operator in Europe. It is a slap in the face for the consumer.”

 

A UK study claims that the chance to become addicted is more likely while gambling online and the EU rules point out that discrimination against competition can legally be set up, if there is compelling reason to believe public safety is involved.

 

Bookmakers say they will protest the French provision demanding almost two percent of revenue for the sports commission to help counter gaming corruption. Online casinos say they already help make betting transparent and aid in detecting potential match fixing.

Tags: betfair, french gambling law, french gambling market, gambling advice, gambling help, Gambling law, gambling market, online casino, Online casinos, online gambling

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Gambling law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.