Gambling News - May 2005 Edition

"France Set to Allow Online Casino Gambling"

Internet gambling taking off in france

Legislation regarding online gambling is moving much faster in the UK and Europe than it is in the U.S., even though online gambling is already very popular in the United States and has been for quite some time. Internet gambling has been popular in both France and England for several years now and both countries show a high record of participation at Internet gambling sites. The French have the highest rate of participation and estimates show that the French gamble twice as much and three times as long as do their British counterparts on the internet.

This is strange considering the fact that land-based casino gambling is illegal in most regions of France and that the only online gambling options available to the French are state-managed operations such as Pari Mutuel Urbain lotto and the National Lottery. Online gambling has enabled French players to access online gambling sites and bypass the French law that prohibits online gambling due to an inconsistency in EU policy,

A possible factor behind the popularity of the online casinos in France is the increased access to high-speed Internet connections, since most of the software for online casino games is designed nowadays for high-speed Internet connections. Some analysts of the industry, however, aren’t sure whether it is the increased access to high-speed Internet connections driving the expanding popularity of Internet gambling, or Internet gambling that is fueling the demand for high-speed Internet connections. Spain’s has a large high-speed Internet market, but their population spends a relatively minor amount of time on Internet gambling sites.

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