Online gambling gets a win in French High Court
In a major blow to existent French gaming law, the French High Court has ruled that the French horse racing monopolist Parimutuel Urbain (PMU) cannot prevent Malta-based ZeTurf from offering wagers over the Internet on French horse races.
The case dates back to 2005, when the French founder of ZeTurf fled to Malta, and the PMU instigated legal proceedings against the company. On July 8 2005, the Paris Court of First Instance ruled that it was illegal for the online betting company to accept bets from French citizens over the Internet, in violation of the monopoly granted to PMU by the French Government. ZeTurf appealed against the decision and lost again in January 2006. However, as the company had moved off shore the decision was difficult to enforce. PMU attempted to have the matter heard in Malta, but the Maltese court said that it had no jurisdiction over a French Government monopoly and punted the case back to the French. The Register notes that this latest judgment will be a wake-up call to French authorities, which have been adamantly opposed to online gaming. The court noted that under the recently decided European Court of Justice Placanica case, countries that operate a government monopoly under the rationale that an extremely tightly regulated gambling industry is necessary to protect gamblers from themselves, cannot at the same time promote the monopoly as a government revenue stream, which they all do. Full report in The Register Download the ruling