Source: Pokernews.com
France has now joined the United States in the pursuit of online gaming companies after their law enforcement authorities took two executives of a prominent company into custody on Friday. Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger, the two leaders of Austrian online bookmaker Bwin, were arrested during a press conference unveiling their sponsorship of a soccer team from Monaco. The two were arrested for "organizing illegal bets online" and "advertising online betting" which are against the law in France. Against the law, that is, unless the companies are French in origin.
While the French authorities have said that "online bets are forbidden in France", there are legally accepted companies, French in origin, that are allowed to operate. The French Lottery is allowed to wager online as are two French bookmaking operations, Francaise des Jeux and Pari Mutuel Urbain, which have faced no action and are actually state sponsored by the government. Again it seems that if the company is sponsored by the goverment, and the government receives kickback from these ventures, all of a sudden it becomes ok. Nothing dodgy here.
In a pending case in front of the European Union trade organization, France is one of the seven countries that have faced scrutiny over prevention of outside foreign competition in the online gaming industry. When asked if there would be more arrests of online executives in the future, a French intelligence official said, "If we have evidence, we will look at them." This has helped to cause a fall in the stock prices of many of the online firms that trade on the London Stock Market.
The French arrests follow on the heels of two online executives being arrested in the United States over the past two months. Peter Carruthers, former CEO of BetOnSports, was taken into custody in July and Peter Dicks, former chairman of SportingBet, was arrested earlier this month, both for their companies acceptance of wagers from Americans. The major difference between these arrests is, in Europe, online bookmaking is a regulated and recognized industry, something that was pointed out vehemently by Bwin officials.
So it seems the online gambling war continues. More tomorrow.
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