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UPDATE - France's budget minister reportedly said in a radio interview on Sunday (October 27) that the government would withdraw the online casino amendment. However it remains tabled and scheduled for discussion as of the time of this update.
The budget amendment that would legalise online casino games in France has been met with favour by the French public and opposition by land-based casinos and local politicians.
Currently, France is the only country in mainland Europe that has not regulated online casino games and has faced problems with the public not understanding that gambling on these sites is illegal and unprotected, according to surveys presented by the National Gaming Authority (ANJ).
An amendment submitted by the government to the upcoming budget bill would legalise the sector, with an eye-watering proposed tax rate of 55.6 percent of gross gambling revenue, which is the same as online lottery games.
The polarising amendment has snuck its way onto the agenda quietly and with little warning, as the country tried to find revenue sources to dig itself out of a public deficit that climbed to 5.5 percent of GDP last year.
A feared measure to raise gambling taxes across the board did not appear in the 2025 budget bill after the plan was leaked to the press, and was subsequently removed. It is thought that those changes will later be presented as an amendment, however.
Sixty-two percent of the 1,010 people surveyed by Consumer Science & Analytics (CSA) and the French Online Gaming Association (AFJEL) said that they support the regulation of online casino games.
Some 28 percent said that they had played an online casino game at some point already, while 93 percent of those who had played said that they did not know it was illegal.
Diane Mullenex, a lawyer who heads the gaming practice at Pinsent Masons, told Vixio GamblingCompliance that France’s land-based casinos are lobbying to open the market by making online licences available only to them for at least the first few years.
“I don't think that it's going to be a very straightforward discussion,” said Mullenex.
“Because first, if you go along the lines of only opening the market to brick and mortars that could then have the offering online, some independent casinos might consider teaming up with some international players.
“So I don't think it restricts the market in itself in the longer term. I think also that land-based casinos and online casinos are two different worlds, and are relying on different expertise. So we'll see how things [take] shape.”
The Addiction Federation has also entered the fray with its own concerns, issuing a statement that “this reform of considerable magnitude cannot be adopted hastily, without consultation with addiction stakeholders and a debate on its health consequences”.
Catherine Delorme, the president of the federation, said: “Online casinos combine all the risk factors for addiction: high frequency of bets, speed of results, solitary, continuous and rapid risk-taking.”
Meanwhile, a op-ed was published in France’s Le Figaro newspaper signed by more than 100 mayors calling for the amendment to be scrapped.
It read, in part “by opening the Pandora's box of online casinos, you think you will generate additional tax revenue, but it is precisely the opposite that will happen. By directly weakening a French sector, you risk destroying an essential tax revenue for our municipalities.”
