Are Online Poker & Online Gambling the Next Dodo Birds in France?
Recent actions in France to extinguish non-state owned online poker and online gambling have to make you wonder if France, like the United States, protects their state-owned monopolies and special interest groups by passing laws making competition illegal and by pressuring competition to close down. They publicly justify their behaviors by calling them anti-terrorist measures against money laundering, or protection of vulnerable compulsive or underage gamblers. If so, why are their state-owned monopolies allowed to continue? And how do they protect against such evils? French state-owned companies La Francaise des Jeux (lottery and sports betting) and Le Pari Mutuel Urbain (horsebetting) have legislated online monopolies. Their complaints last September led French authorities to arrest two execs of Bwin, parent company of PokerRoom.com, while it investigated Bwin’s French football sponsorships and promotional activities in France (click here to read prior article). A proposed meeting be
