French gambling regulators issue nine more licenses to poker sites, sportsbooks

A month and a half after new French gambling laws were introduced, the market for legal online gambling just keeps growing. Today the country’s gambling regulatory body Autorité de Régulation des Jeux En Ligne (ARJEL) handed out another five licenses to provide online poker sites in France, two for horseracing betting, and two more for those supplying online sportsbooks in France. 

Among the bigger names to win new rights in France were Full Tilt Poker (which will be providing poker as Rekop.fr), PKR and Ladbrokes. The latter will be introducing its sports betting services under the “CanalWin” brand name in the country. 

From within the country, France’s land-based casino company Barrière also won a license from the French government and hopes to levy its name into further profits as it introduces a new online poker website this autumn. Barrière will be installing its virtual poker room on the Francaise de Jeux website. Francaise de Jeux was the sports betting monopoly in France under the old gambling law. 

Other new licensees include online poker providers Ad Astra and Full Fun, who will join the Microgaming/888 network; Jeux 365 sportsbook; and pari-mutuel horse betting companies Geny Infos and Zeturf France. Zeturf had previously announced a partnership with Unibet to provide horseracing product.  

The total number of approved licensees for online gambling in France now stands at 27. There is no word as to when more licenses might be issued, but some companies – most significantly Unibet – have expressed their intent to apply to the market.