Skip to main content

Betfair blocked by loopy French regulations

Despite egamingreview claiming Betfair were over the line six weeks ago, the French government have drafted their new online betting legislation this week, with a specific prohibition for betting exchanges.

French government's new gambling law bans Betfair and all exchanges

The French government has effectively outlawed the online betting exchange Betfair after passing an amendment to new gambling laws. These are being closely watched by sports bodies in the UK which are lobbying the government to bring in similar regulations.

Under a surprise last-minute amendment, betting exchanges such as Betfair that allow punters to lay as well as place bets were excluded from the legislation in a move that the company described as "discriminatory".


...

Passing the amendment, the French parliament also referred to a 2007 report from the British Gambling Commission that said 9.8% of punters using betting exchanges developed gambling addictions, compared to a rate of between one and three per cent among the general gambling population.


If that was the case - and Betfair have ridiculed the report as being of a meaningless sample size - then there would be over 200,000 problem gamblers from Betfair alone based on their number of accountholders. Somehow I don't think so. Try looking at pointless slot machines and casinos if you want the major cause of problem gambling.

Anyway, it looks like this battle will go via the EU and French law courts for a long, long time to come. The bookies making a move on Paris will be delighted!

Comments

  1. Bit of a bummer. If trading worked out for me one of my ambitions would be to move to France with my girlfriend and trade from there. Hope Betair find a way through in the next 5 years or so.

    ReplyDelete
  2. only means they can't advertise there, it hasn't made it a criminal offence for users based in the country.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Scott, much better than what I first thought.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comments, but if you're a spammer, you've just wasted your time - it won't get posted.

Popular posts from this blog

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

Betdaq.... sold...... FOR HOW MUCH???

So as rumoured for a while, Ladbrokes have finally acquired the lemon, sorry, purple-coloured betting exchange, Betdaq. For a mind-boggling €30m as 'initial consideration'. That's an even more ridiculous price than Fernando Torres for £50m, or any English player Liverpool have purchased in recent seasons! As I've written previously there are no logical business reasons for this acquisition. from Nov 29, 2012 The Racing Post reported this week that Ladbrokes are nearing a decision to acquire Betdaq. This baffles me, it really does. Betdaq are a complete and utter lemon. Their only rival in the market has kicked so many own goals over the years with the premium charge, followed by an increase in the premium charge, cost of API and data use, customer service standards which have fallen faster than Facebook share value, site crashes and various other faults. So many pissed off Betfair customers, yet Betdaq are still tailed off with a lap to go. Around the world, Betfair

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...