French May Attempt to Copy Chinese Online Gambling Trends

February 01, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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Certain countries in the European Union, such as France, are still battling to maintain their independence when it comes to contentious issues, such as legalized online gambling. The French government do not want to be part of the free market that is meant to operate in the EU when it comes to allowing foreign online gambling operations being allowed to operate in France, and to offer their products to the French people.

The French Senate’s Finance Committee has already approved an attachment to France’s national gaming measure in order to attempt to prevent the French people from accessing any online gambling sites that are not under the French online gambling regulations.

The way in which France hopes to do this is by blocking search engine results that helps French residents to find online casinos that are based elsewhere, and those that are unlicensed. China attempted to instruct Google to perform this block on the Google search engine. Google refused and has moved towards abandoning their operations in China. Google and China are currently undergoing a dispute on this issue. China wants Google to block not only online gambling sites, but also sites that promote political activism, and pornography, amongst others. Google has refused and noted that they would prefer to simply remove their service from China, rather than agreeing to censor search engine results.

The new French bill would require all foreign online casino operators to be licensed in France. Domestic French online gambling operators would receive licenses. In order for the foreign Internet gambling operations to receive their French licenses, they would have to first establish a physical presence in France, as well as complying with any French rules that exist.

The European Commission has warned France that the regulations they have chosen to implement are in violation of the requirements of the European Treaty. The EC has warned France that this blatant disregard for the European Treaty rules can result in infringement charges. The European Treaty states that all member nations are to act as a single financial market. This free market is meant to prevent protectionism from member countries in order to prevent the discrimination that would come with moves of this nature.

The Remote Gambling Association, amongst others, has protested the regulations that have been proposed by the French government. All those that believe in Internet freedom are likely to join in the protest.