Euro Poker News: Poker in France Suffers a Setback

What exactly happened? How can the third edition of a widely popular live event be cancelled, only days after the French government officially voted the law allowing the introduction of poker in our 196 land-based casinos?

The answer lies in the involvment of an online gambling website in the organisation of the French Open. After two highly successful tournaments in 2005 and 2006, the PokerStars banners and Chris Moneymaker posters aren't welcome anymore in Le Salon des Ambassadeurs.

The sharp observer I'm supposed to be should have seen it coming. The cancellation of the French Open is just another step in the fight French authorities engaged against online gambling. Since I started this column last June, I've been trying to give a fair picture of the French poker landscape to my foreign readers. To get a better understanding of what's going on here, let me remind you of the three main developments that happened in 2006:

1. Poker became more and more popular among French people. The Friday night home game is now an acceptable form of social pastime, and poker communities are growing like mushrooms. As a result, authorities have been worried about the multiplication of low-buy-in amateur tournaments held in public places, and are trying to shut them down. Also, the online poker market has been growing steadily.

2. Meanwhile, French authorities began fighting against online gambling (casinos, cardrooms, bookmakers) to protect their monopoly in that area. Bwin (an online gaming site) executives were arrested in the south of France in September. Patrick Bruel was questionned by the police about his involvment with Winamax just before Christmas. (The talented actor and singer and World Series of Poker bracelet winner was the poster boy for the online cardroom when it launched its French website.) Everybody started to feel the heat, and last December a new law was voted banning any form of advertising for gambling websites and forbidding financial transfers between banks and such websites; it was virtually a French version of the UIGEA (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of the U.S.).

3. Texas hold'em can now be played in French casinos. This is official since Dec. 13. Expect to read more on the subject in future columns.

Obviously, those three points are strongly tied together. Indeed, French authorities had two options in reacting to the game's increasing popularity (both online and live): free it or fight it. They adopted two distinct stances.

First, regarding live poker: Our legislators made a good decision by legalizing poker in the casinos. Those places are stricly controlled by the gaming police, and will provide a safe environment for the players. We have yet to see how high the rake will be, but this is another story. Poker, still considered a game of luck by law, will have to stay where it is meant to be played: in cardrooms and casinos. Private games with raked pots and unauthorized public tournaments will remain forbidden, mostly to protect the citizens from getting hustled in shady backroom games.

On the other hand, there is online gambling: On this issue, a conservative approach was adopted. State-owned companies La Francaise des Jeux (lottery and sports betting) and Le Pari Mutuel Urbain (horses) have the monopoly to run gambling operations online, and it will stay as it is. Will it prevent people from gambling elsewhere? The French monopoly was questioned many times by the European Commission, and several experts tend to think that this situation won't last in the current context of liberalization within Europe. In Italy, the online gambling ban was strongly enforced at first, only to be followed by a 180-degree turn with the distribution of operating licences to gambling companies. Can we expect the same turn of events in France? Frankly, I don't know. As always, when big bucks are at stake, and a lot of lobbying and politics are involved, the situation is often unclear.

A collateral victim of the war against illegal online gambling, the Deauville French Open was the favorite venue on the tour for many players, and will be sorely missed. More than 600 players were expected just for the main event, which would have resulted in the biggest prize pool ever for a European tournament. But enough with the tears. Poker, as life, will go on. Since France is now off the map, two new events have been scheduled in March to expand the European Poker Tour circuit: Warsaw (Poland) and Dortmund (Germany).

To qualify for an EPT event, visit PokerStars.

For more Happenings in Europe, visit CardPlayerEurope.com.

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