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Public progress on legalising online casino games in France has been thin on the ground, but recent glimpses suggest that efforts to lobby key decision makers are still underway.
Earlier this month, several of the leading lights of French gambling appeared at a Senate hearing convened to discuss recent increases to French gambling taxes.
Rates have risen across the board from July, with the various levies on online betting having lifted the tax rate to close to 50 percent of gross gambling revenue (GGR). Operators argue that once other costs are factored in they are being taxed close to 70 percent of their overall revenue.
Executives from Betclic, FDJ United and Barrière Groupe told lawmakers that the taxes were self-defeating and would force companies to scale back investment, rather than driving cash to the French treasury.
For international onlookers, however, discussions around tax were a sideshow, not least because the trio of industry leaders arrayed before the French Senate are seen as three of the main personas in the ongoing push to legalise online casino gambling.
As well as being the CEO of Betclic, Nicolas Béraud is also the recently re-elected president of trade group AFJEL, which counts Entain, PokerStars and Betsson among its members.
He represents the faction pushing hardest for France to follow in the footsteps of almost all of its European neighbours and open up a potentially highly lucrative licensed market for igaming operators.
Béraud shared the stage with Grégory Rabuel, who as well as leading Barrière, also helms Casinos de France - a trade group which represents France’s land-based casino industry.
The pair clashed on calls for online casinos to be opened up, renewing an argument which spilled into the press last year, after an aborted attempt by the then French government to legalise online casinos via a budget amendment.
An intervention by the casino sector and the local governments, with which they have forged powerful economic ties, were widely reported as central to blocking that attempt.
Rabuel told Senate lawmakers that his group remains opposed to opening the online casino market over fears it would damage revenue at brick-and-mortar venues.
“I invite you to go to Google and type ‘online casino’, which will allow you to see that you can play in two minutes,” said Béraud.
“This market therefore already exists, it is growing, and is of a size equivalent to that of the legal market: logically, its existence should have already produced its effects on the turnover of physical casinos, but it is clear that the latter continues to grow,” he said.
The threat of this offshore wild west environment was highlighted earlier this year, when French casino operator Partouche was forced to issue a public statement to separate itself from what it described as a “massive and fraudulent campaign to exploit its brands” in the black market.
Béraud further alleged that, despite their apparent distaste for the sector, casinos have begun hiring online casino experts to join their staff.
Those experts may well be involved in the creation of “Project Jade”, a scheme promoted by Casinos de France that would allow for an “experimental” window of online casino regulation during which only existing land-based operators in France would be permitted to operate online.
Béraud and Rabuel were also joined by Stéphane Pallez, CEO of FDJ United.
The company, formerly known as Francaise De Jeux, recently rebranded itself after completing a takeover of European online gambling giant Kindred.
FDJ United’s role in unlocking legal online casino gambling is critical because of its unique connections to the French government. Formerly a state-owned company, France sold most of its former majority holding in 2019, but retains a roughly 20 percent stake in the company.
While executives from FDJ have been keen to emphasise the broad benefits of absorbing Kindred beyond France, there remains an obvious opportunity to exploit its newly acquired online casino expertise in its home market.
But for now, Pallez and FDJ appear to be taking a slow and steady approach.
“A discussion on the potential opening of online casinos must be conducted by reconciling the need for regulation and the proper functioning of economic activity, and time will be needed to conduct a serious debate on the subject if the question is to move towards this authorisation,” she told lawmakers.
After the defeat of its budget amendment, France's former government launched a consultation to conduct a more thorough examination of the effects of online casino licensing, but the short-lived Barnier administration collapsed shortly afterwards and the inquiry has been gathering dust ever since.
“Let's relaunch the consultation, because there's no reason why we can't move beyond a status quo that's a loss for everyone involved,” said Béraud.
“The state is losing between €1bn and €2bn in tax revenue, the regulator isn't fulfilling its role of protecting players and land-based casino operators are losing the opportunity to develop a new business that's being run by offshore companies.”
