French senator François Trucy, who authored the two parliamentary reports on
online gambling, that was presented this Tuesday in the President of the finance committee, Jean Arthuis, described his job to be quite challenging as the calendar, according to him, was extremely tight. The online gambling competition comprising Poker, sports betting, and online gambling is to open on June 1st, 2010, which is incidentally one day prior to starting of World Cup of football. Senator Trucy drafted the bill quite carefully and as per this text each type of game like sports betting, poker, and horse bets must have separate approval.
This could lead several hundred applications to be received by Arjel which will be the authority responsible for regulating the online gambling sector. Senator Jean Arthuis is also having the same consideration about the gaming and it is said that he will be supported by his colleagues at UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) which is the centre-right French political party.
Just to recap, on October 13th, 2009 this particular bill was approved by the French National Assembly and subsequently was adopted by the deputies. Now aspirations of many French poker players and online gamblers as well as operators rest with the confirmation of this by the French National Assembly. This will be done in the month of March only after the text of the bill is approved by the Senate members during February 23rd and 24th.
As described by Senator Trucy, now the authorities will be in the nails. He also expressed his fear of the consequence if the law is not in place on June 1st because lots of operators would be spending huge money on advertisement just prior to the World Cup of Football starts at South Africa. I am sure he would not like to miss this deadline for the sake of them as well as several poker players and online gambling fans.
