France Seeks to Launch Online Casinos in 2025

According to a report by France 24, a popular French media outlet, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government is seeking to regulate the iGaming sector, effectively bringing online casinos to the country.

France’s New Prime Minister Wastes No Time in Pitching Online Casino Legalization

This happens in the context of several important details. First, the brick-and-mortar lobby in the country has vehemently opposed the launch of Internet casinos, cautioning about potential job losses and the influence of bad actor operators.

This new proposal comes at a time when the country’s Association Française du Jeu en Ligne has said that France is de facto “losing the war” on illegal gambling.

In the meantime, France has been grappling with a surging black-market operation, which continues to hound the sports betting sector, with channelling rates still a concern, and online casino gaming fully funnelled through such black actor operators.  

The Bernier’s government, however, is mostly basing its proposal to switch to a regulated online casino licensing regime on a need to harmonize regulation with other European Union Member States, and an amendment to the 2025 budget plan has already been submitted.

France presently only allows regulated sports betting, poker, and lotteries. Poker, although a form of iGaming, falls under the category of a “game of skill” more so than a game of chance, which is where casino-style games usually fall.

Practical considerations, such as the growth of the illegal gambling market, though, are now costing the cash-strapped treasury a hefty penny, with France also running one of the largest budget deficits against its gross domestic product in the European Union.

The estimated value of the illegal online casino market in France is said to be around $1.70 billion. To address this, the government believes that legalizing and addressing the sector would have a positive impact on consumer health and protection, as well as offer much-needed cash revenue windfall for the state.

Jobs at Risk, Claim Physical Casinos Worried about Changes

Brick-and-mortar casinos have been very strictly against the possibility of introducing online casinos. They estimate that they are set to lose between 20% and 30% of their revenue, which could have serious consequences.

Balancing the pros and cons of shifting towards a regulated online casino market has been the subject of fierce debate, but with the black market already syphoning off revenue from those properties, backers of the legalization movement claim that the argument put forward by physical casinos is untenable.

The French Casino Association’s head, Gregory Rabuel, has said that should online casinos be legalized, as many as 15,000 jobs could be put at risk. Earlier this month, the industry was worried that a change in gambling tax might also be coming, but those rumors have been put to rest earlier this month and until now.

The amendment pitched by Barnier is set to at least partially change that, as in the same stride it lays the groundwork for online casinos, it similarly proposes a 55.6% tax rate on the yet-to-be-launched vertical, which could secure the state its much-needed funds to plug deficit gaps.