4/11/2022

Online Poker France Legal

Gambling in France is very popular and many traditional forms of betting activity actually have their origins in the country.

  1. What is more, France was one of the first European countries to legalize online poker. However, the country imposes heavy taxes on legal online poker providers located within French borders who then have to reimburse their expenses by offering lower rakebacks.
  2. With sports depleted, online poker has blast-off in France and increased by 126% to €142 million. This was the largest gain ever for France’s 10-year old market. The number of weekly players grew substantially to 1.06 million, which is 68% more poker players. Cash games and tournaments soared.

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Online betting and gambling in France is legal and the countries residents are free to choose from a small pool of licensed providers. Check out the best French betting sites below and also the key rules and regulations regarding gambling in the country.

Best & Licensed Betting Site For France:

T&C’s apply – 18+.

Key Facts: Online Gambling In France

  • Majority of gambling activities are entirely legal and fully regulated within the nation.
  • All land based gambling legal in licenced establishment.
  • Online betting & gambling legal with small pool of licenced operators.
  • Illegal to use online sites without licence.
  • Most non licenced sites blocked by internet service providers.

Gambling Legislation & Law Timeline

The above key points provide a good overview of the legal situation regarding gambling as it stands today in France. The following legislation timeline, meanwhile, helps to explain exactly how that situation came to be:

1836 – Gambling Largely Banned

In 1836 the French government passed an act which banned all forms of gambling apart from horse racing betting. In spite of this act, gambling continued to thrive in the country through illegal gambling dens.

1891 – Further Prohibitive Legislation

Whilst essentially already illegal under the 1836 act, the French parliament passed further legislation to specifically ban all forms of fixed-odds betting and non-horse racing pool betting in 1891. This was largely in order to protect the French invented and state run pari-mutuel horse racing betting industry within the nation.

1920s and 1930s – Various Forms of Gambling Legalised

Through the 1920s and 1930s, many different forms of gambling were legalised in France as long as they were undertaken through state owned providers. The two most notable such providers created were Française des Jeux (FDJ) for betting games and lotteries and Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) for horse race betting.

France

1980s and 1990s – Further Relaxation of Restrictions

The land-based gambling industry in France continued to be legalised and opened up through the 1980s and 1990s, to the point that gambling became essentially wholly legal. Notably, too, in 1987 the legal gambling age was lowered from 21 to 18.

2001 – First Online Gambling Legalised

It was in 2001 that online gambling was first legalised in France but once again this was with the proviso that it be provided by the state run FDJ and PMU organisations. Those companies flourished and a huge amount of their income was and is committed to charitable causes within France.

2010 – French Gambling Act

Following pressure from the EU, who opposed France’s state monopoly over gambling, French authorities passed the French Gambling Act (Law No 2010-476) in 2010. That act made online poker, sports betting and horse racing betting legal in France and set out the framework for licensing and taxation of the industry.

A regulatory body called ARJEL (the ‘Regulatory Authority for Online Games’) was also created by the act. Casino games, however, were not included under the umbrella of the act as they were deemed too addictive to legalise online.

Are Players Taxed On Winnings?

The above provides all the information you require regarding the legality of gambling in France. Taxation, however, also plays a part in shaping the industry and should be briefly discussed.

Gambling in general, and online poker and sports betting in particular, are quite heavily taxed in France. This makes it difficult for operators to turn a profit in the country and by extension can have an impact on the size of winnings and payouts available to punters. On top of this, punters are also liable for tax at a rate of 2% on poker pots and of 8.5% on all sports betting winnings.

Recommended Deposit Methods

With the exception of online casino games, online gambling is fully legal and regulated within France. Punters using fully licensed sites, therefore, can freely pick and choose their favoured deposit methods.

Even if punters use an overseas based unlicensed provider, in fact, they are individually not doing anything illegal in doing so and as such can still confidently select any method they prefer. Depositing via debit or credit card, then, is often the chosen method due to the speed, ease and security which this method offers.

France has a very long history of gambling, going back hundreds of years, and gambling has always been very popular in this country. We actually have the French to thank for adding the Queen to the deck of cards, which happened all the way back in the 1500’s. (1)

France features a massive array of land-based casinos, totaling 189 different ones in 175 different cities. (2) The French are much better known for their penchant towards casino games than poker, and after all, this is the birthplace of Roulette and it remains very popular in this country.

There are actually only a total of 119 poker tables in the country, at 53 different poker rooms. (3) So we’re obviously talking a lot of very small poker rooms here although some are larger like the world famous Aviation Club in Paris, which is still very small by normal standards at 15 poker tables and you have to be a member of the club to be admitted, so if you are a tourist and don’t mind spending the €100 annual membership fee and are over 18 with ID they will let you play there.

So the live poker scene here isn’t anything to get all that excited about really and I don’t think anyone visits France for the poker, but if you do find yourself visiting this country there are a lot of different poker rooms out there, just don’t expect a lot of tables at them.

Online Poker In France

The online poker scene in France is a whole different matter though, and in fact France was the first country to regulate online poker, back in 2010, when the French Gambling Act was passed. (4) Players had already been playing online poker for years, at offshore sites located in online countries, and this new law sought to limit their play to licensed and regulated sites, where the government could then extract quite a bit of tax money.

So this isn’t unlike what we ended up seeing in the states of New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware in the United States, and also in other countries that followed with this scheme, however France has been less successful at keeping their players focused on the licensed action and away from the unlicensed sites.

Legal

In spite of several French online sites such as Pokerstars.fr and Winimax doing quite well in terms of popularity, with both generally in the top 10 of all poker sites in the world in terms of traffic, along with Partypoker.fr and iPoker.fr being among the top 20 (5), a lot of players aren’t all that satisfied with the rake scheme at the French sites, which is quite a bit higher than you see at the offshore sites.

The problem is that the games in France are taxed fairly heavily so the rake here is well above the industry average, which many players object to, especially those who have been marginally successful at typical rate rates but struggle more to make things work with the higher rake that the French rooms have to charge due to the additional taxes they must pay.

So estimates are that almost half of the online poker players have accounts at offshore poker sites, something that the French government wants to curtail but thus far they haven’t been successful in doing so. One of the more popular brands that still accept French players on a more “offshore” basis is PartyPoker. Check out their review and links at the top of this France Poker Law resource page.

The Options For French Residents

In a way, France operates a lot like the United States did before Black Friday, they are looking to ban offshore poker sites by way of French law in the same way that the U.S. did by way of their law, however the problem you run into is that these poker rooms operate in other countries where French law does not apply.

This doesn’t mean that the French regulators are just sitting still during all of this, for instance they are looking to internet service providers to block these sites although that hasn’t put an end to the matter as players still find ways to access these sites. You can block a web site but when you’re talking using software that can be a different story and a lot of players simply refuse to be told where they can play.

There are a lot of players who do choose to play on the regulated French sites though of course, as evidenced by the traffic, and although the numbers have declined, that’s been the case worldwide in the online poker industry and French poker continues to be both very popular and relatively healthy.

With the movement toward regulated poker though, and particularly with some new entries lately, who need to turn away French residents from their main sites in order to maintain their French licenses, good offshore options are becoming more and more limited and we’re getting to the point where players must turn to smaller poker rooms where lack of traffic becomes a concern, so this alone has us moving more and more toward making the regulated poker rooms more appealing.

References:

1. Gambing In France

2. Casino Directory France

3. France Poker Rooms

4. Gambling In France

5. Online Poker Traffic Rankings

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