The recent surprise snap election called by French President Emmanuel Macron could alter the landscape of France’s gaming market, SBC News reported June 18.
That’s because Macron called the surprise election in reaction to the success of the ultra-right Rassemblement National party in the European parliamentary elections. This is causing heartburn in France’s gaming and sports betting sector—not to mention France’s political parties.
There are multiple parties in France, so any governing coalition that emerges victorious will owe much to political deal making. The two rounds of the elections will be June 30 and July 7.
The main issue among the gaming industry is the regulation of online casinos. France remains the only major European market not to have done so. Meanwhile an unregulated black market is visited by as many as 4 million a year.
The unregulated online sports betting market is also formidable, SBC News reported.
Laurent Lassiaz, chief executive officer of JOA Group and vice president of the industry trade body Casinos de France told Gaming & Co. that because of “potential changes in Government, we’ll have to ‘educate’ or ‘update’ any new members. It means more meetings, but also more opportunities to raise the awareness of our topics.”
Marine Le Pen’s RN could win about one third of the votes and possibly lead the government until the 2027 presidential elections. Macron’s Renaissance party hopes to forge a deal with other center-right parties but that’s an iffy proposition.
If the RN party should achieve power for the first time, how would it approach gaming regulation? Lassiaz can only speculate. He told Gaming & Co.: “Any new players at government level will take a close look at how to get more euros into the budget,” he said. “Therefore regulating online casino would be an option as it would generate €800 million-€ 1 billion in tax revenues.”
Some gaming stakeholders worry that the elections could lead to a “complete reorganization of political life.” One source told G&C: “Positions on certain topics can evolve, or not and we don’t know who will be in charge of the economy, if there will still be a digital portfolio, plus all the compromises required to form a government.”
Lassiaz is more sanguine. Any government, no matter its philosophy “knows what the options are in order to tackle a major European illegal market, generate more taxes and put in place better player protection measures than the current system.”
