France Regulates Online Gambling Market

The process of regulating online gambling in France is finally over and they have issued 11 licenses so that companies can start providing online gambling services to the French citizens. The French regulatory authority ARJEL issued licenses for online horse racing, sports betting and poker.

Jean-Francois Vilotte, a spokesman for ARJEL, informed that 24 companies applied for the licenses, only 11 were granted, but none of the other companies have been turned down yet.

“Certain files of application remain in the course of instruction. There are several reasons that these applications are still under review, including the need for additional information from the applicants. The fact that these companies were not a part of the first issuance of licenses for regulated online gambling in France does not prejudge any decision on their application,” said Vilotte.

Amongst the big online gambling services providers who got a license are Everest Gaming, Unibet Enterprises and Bwin. The other licenses were granted to French companies and most of them concern sports betting. Microgaming and 888 are two of the companies that have not been issued a license but they are still waiting to be part of the French online gambling market, one of the most important ones in Europe.