Despite the high taxes and lack of certain popular games, the online gambling market in France is still flourishing and continues to show steady growth. There are also high taxes on winnings from online poker and sports betting which has pushed players away from gambling at their very own home-grown gambling sites and into the arms of foreign-controlled websites where players don’t have to pay any taxes. High taxes are one of the main setbacks that potential operators consider before applying for a license in France, and this factor alone has driven away numerous operators who no longer wish to continue offering their services to the French market. One of the roles of the authority was to crackdown on foreign-controlled gambling sites that aimed their business towards French citizens but were unlicensed in France.

When the 2010 Gambling Act was introduced, a regulatory body known as ARJEL (the ‘Regulatory Authority for Online Games’), was also formed and this was designed to specifically oversee legal online gambling activities in the country.

France Gambling & Online Gambling Lawsįrance as a whole is still recognized as being a gambling-friendly nation with its fairly liberal outlook towards gambling activities in general. However, approximately half of the online gambling operators that ended up acquiring a gambling licence half a decade ago have already left the market, and the main reason for this is due to the extremely high taxes that are imposed by authorities. The new legislation also allowed for both the regulation and taxation of foreign-based online casinos, online poker, bingo and sports betting sites. In 2010 the new Gambling Act came into effect, and it was at this point when certain games such as slots, baccarat and roulette became prohibited. Before 2010 only national companies were permitted to operate gambling sites online and the two prominent market leaders were Francaise des Jeux and the PMU.

Players quickly turned to online casino gambling in the mid-’90s with the emergence of numerous foreign-based gambling sites, but it wasn’t until 2010 that the online casino industry was properly regulated. Also in this same year, the legal gambling age was lowered from 21 to 18. In more recent times, in 1988, was the year in which land-based slot machines were made legal and France became one of the most gambling-friendly countries in Europe. It’s well known that Roulette was developed in France back in the 1700s and pari-mutuel betting is also said to have originated in France in the 1800s. France has a long history of gambling and is reported to have added the Queen to the deck of cards in the 16th century (replacing the Nobleman).

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