Betfair gets clearance from France ahead of liberalisation 24/08/2009

Jake Pollard

BETFAIR wil be able to apply for a French online betting licence for its flagship bettting exchange product ahead of the opening of the country's online gaming and betting market in 2010.

The bettting exchange product was approved by the French authorities as one of the gaming products that could be licensed in  the upcoming French regulation.  

This means Betfair will be able to openly advertise and take bets from French punters in what it is expected to be one of the world’s biggest online gambling markets.

Sources have suggested that the British operator’s flagship product was included in the French legislation after heavy lobbying by Betfair shareholder Bernard Arnault, who holds around 10% of the company’s shares. Arnault is also the chief executive of luxury goods company Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) and one of France’s richest businesspeople.

Betfair managing director Mark Davies told EGRmagazine.com: “In my view no system which allows fixed-odds bookmaking can outlaw an exchange, since an exchange is nothing more than a bookmaking system which manages the risk down to zero. While [the regulation] is good news, it is also inevitable in any licensed environment, because it is legally impossible to differentiate. Anyone who disagrees with that doesn't understand what the [betting exchange] product actually is.”

Betfair will be subject to the same levels of taxation as the other operators planning on getting licensed in France. The regulatory framework and high taxes set out by the French government for online betting have been widely criticised by operators and deemed to be non-compliant with EU law by the European Commission, but will not be altered. Further legal action from European operators is likely as a result, who will likely target the monopolies for abuse of dominant position.

Poker operators looking to get licensed in France were more fortunate, however, when the authorities recently agreed to alter the legislation for online poker.  

In other Betfair news, the company denied a story in the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper that it would be floating on the stock exchange in the coming months, Davies dismissing it as “just speculation”.  

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Posted: 24/08/2009