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Welcome to this week's Bullet Business Legal Gaming in Europe newsletter. This weeks guest editor is Thibault Verbiest of ULYS, an expert in French gaming law. The focus of the newsletter is on the opportunity and potential of the French market.

As ever, if you would like to contribute as a guest editor. Simply contact myself on msetters@bulletbusiness.com.

The opening of French gaming markets

Since June 2007, the French gaming market is slowly opening. This is the result of pressure from the European Commission (through an infringement procedure against France) and the French Supreme Court (through a ground breaking decision).

Both the infringement procedure and the Supreme Court decision targeted the online horse race and sport betting monopolies of the PMU (Pari Mutuel Urbain) and the FDJ (Française des Jeux).

These two major cracks in the, utterly restrictive and unlawful, French gaming regime have forced the French government to reconsider the whole system of gambling regulation.government is currently engaged in a discussion with the European Commission with the objective of bringing the online horse race and sport betting regimes into conformity with article 49 of the EC Treaty - which guarantees the free circulation of services in the European Union. These talks are France's last chance before the European Commission decides to bring a case before the European Court of Justice.

Despite several comments from the French government assuring that France had very good arguments to maintain its monopolies, the negotiations between France and the Commission are moving towards an opening of the online gaming market. The Finance Ministry met Charlie Mc Creevy, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, on 6 November. It seems that an unofficial grace period has been granted to France, until June 2008, to change its gaming policy for sport betting.

A conference on the gaming regime (held in October 2007) organised by French Senator François Trucy, provided an opportunity for a major brainstorming session for stakeholders - including all of the key gaming interests (online, casinos, French monopolies, the French administration etc.) The Minister of the Interior, Ms. Michèle Alliot Marie declared that the future of gaming in France would be considered afresh without any topic being treated as "taboo". Offline casinos have welcomed this statement as a sign that they will finally obtain a license to operate online after years of asking. There was also a general consensus that France should have an independent Gaming Commission which would supervise all the different categories of gaming.

Although it is not yet clear what the extent of the transformations to gaming policy will be, it is apparent that 2008 will be the year of change for French gaming policy. The safest bet is that France will open its online gaming market to European operators through a system of licenses. In parallel, it is reasonable to think that no new action will be taken against EU operators. Since judges are independent, no one can foresee what the result of the ongoing cases will be, but the decision of the French Supreme court should place private operators in a good position.

Thibault Verbiest can be contacted on Tel. Belgique +32 (0) 2 340 88 10 or Tel France +33 (0) 1 40 70 90 11 or on email at thibault.verbiest@ulys.net