France Operators Won’t Shut Down Online Gambling Accounts

Good news for online gambling operators in France as it has been reported they will not have to shut down their gambling customers accounts.

EGR Magazine revealed the decision on Friday.

That site reports:

The measure to  force operators wanting to be licensed in France to close their current French customers' accounts from the time the law is voted until the licences are awarded, which was passed in October 2009, has been revoked by the French Senate, Senator Franocis Trucy, the law's rapporteur for the Senate, told eGaming Review's French media partner iGaming France this week.

Trucy said: "The issue of the closure of French accounts is not in question [and] operators will be able to carry on working with French players between the law being passed and licences being handed out".

However penalties for sites that continue to operate in France once the regulation is in force will be increased, Trucy continued, and operators will instead have to transfer all their French customers to a .fr site once in possession of their licences.  

France has been especially aggressive in going after online gambling operators in recent years.

It was only a little more than two years ago that Unibet's CEO Petter Nylander was transferred from the Netherlands to the French legal authorities in Nanterre where he faced charges for alleged breach of French gambling laws.

Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com