Monday night, ARJEL (Autorité de Régulation des Jeux En Ligne, which means the Authority of Regulation of Online Games), the French online gaming regulatory body, issued nine new licenses to companies wishing to offer internet gambling services to French customers. Full Tilt Poker and PKR were amongst those nine who may now get back into the French market.
The Full Tilt entity that was actually issued the license is cleverly named Rekop, and French customers can visit FullTiltPoker.fr to download the software. PKR France SAS was issued PKR’s license and, predictably, players can visit PKR.fr for that poker room’s offering.
As for the other companies who were awarded licenses, Ad Astra (pokersubito.fr) and FullFun (pokerxtrem.fr) will become a part of the new 888/Microgaming French market joint venture. Barriere, which owns and operates land-based casinos, hotels, restaurants, and resorts in France, will team up with France’s former sports betting monopoly, Francaise de Jeux, to offer online poker in the fall.
CanalWin (canalwin.fr or canal-win.fr) will use its new license in a sports betting joint venture with Ladbrokes and three pari-mutuel horse betting sites – Jeux 365 (jeux365.fr), Geny Infos (genbet.fr), Zeturf France (zeturf.fr) – were also issued French licenses. Zeturf plans on joining up with Unibet, although Unibet has yet to receive a license.
For almost three years, the online gambling market in France was owned by a state run monopoly. In April, however, a law was passed to allow for regulated gaming, opening up the market to foreign operators who follow strict guidelines and, of course, receive a license from ARJEL. While the licensing program sounds good on the surface, it has caused much discontent amongst French players, as not only are they limited to playing with their countrymen on the licensed sites, but some of the poker rooms are passing along added costs from the licensing to their players.
With the nine new companies on board, the list of ARJEL licensees now stands at twenty-seven. The first eleven licenses were issued in June, with Bwin, ChiliGaming, PartyGaming, Everest Poker, BetClic, and Paddy Power amongst those being granted the right to offer their services to French citizens. PokerStars was in the next wave of licensees, meaning that six of the seven largest rooms/networks on PokerScout.com’s cash game traffic rankings – PokerStars, Full Tilt, PartyPoker, iPoker (via Chili Poker), Ongame, and Microgaming) – now have French offerings. In fact, PokerStars.fr itself ranks ninth, ahead of Everest Poker.