Bookmaker News

Michèle Alliot-Marie, the French Minister of the Interior, has revealed the government’s intention to prohibit online gaming websites, in the context of the framework and implementation law for internal security.

This law, which is likely to be adopted in the first half of 2008, aims to combat cybercrime and gambling addictions. It is part of an action plan to combat all forms of computer crime (theft of bank card numbers, child pornography, drug trafficking, invasion of privacy, etc.).

The measures may eventually include outlawing transactions between banks and online betting websites.

The current statistics are revealing: online gambling addictions are an epidemic affecting nearly one million players in France. Cybercrime is also a rapidly increasing phenomenon that has reached alarming proportions.

But paradoxically, industry professionals are very confident about the future of online poker. Indeed, the opening up of the French market now seems inevitable, given the European Commission’s recent injunction. France is currently thought to be studying strategies for a controlled liberalisation of its market.