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France Not Budging on Online Gambling, but Will Open PMU TurfWed, Nov 7th, 2007 @ 12:00am French Budget Minister Eric Woerth announced in an interview Tuesday that France is ready to consider loosening their monopoly on betting on horse races, which is held by Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), but they are not ready to drop key elements of rules limiting online gambling, affecting online poker. His comments were made in anticipation of his meeting with Internal Market Commissioner for the European Commission, Charles McCreevy, on 6 November. McCreevy has repeatedly challenged France to open their gambling market to other EU-based companies, in compliance with EU law, and the meeting is to discuss their disagreement. On 27 June, the EU Commission issued a reasoned opinion against France in relation with the infringement proceedings concerning France's restrictions on sports betting (click here for related PP article). "We are not opposed to a certain opening [referring to horse betting], but we will remain firm on certain points," Woerth told daily Le Parisien when asked on which points he would hold firm. Minister Eric Woerth stressed that France would not compromise on certain points such as mutual recognition and tax control. "Just because an operator is recognized in a foreign country is no reason for us to have to open our gates to them in France, " Woerth said. "We intend to keep control of authorisations. The question of tax should also be looked at because we want to keep control of that," he added. Horse betting monopoly PMU recently came under fire after recently-arrested Unibet CEO Petter Nylander called France's 1836 and 1891 gambling laws protecting state-owned monopolies as obsolete (click here to read related article). Woerth said he would not allow fixed-odds betting, where the payout is agreed when a bet is made. "Operators apart from the PMU could be accepted, but we want to keep the principle of pari-mutuel," said Woerth. Parimutuel is the system in which the total amount of money bet on a race is placed in a pool and divided among winners after deductions for tax and expenses. PMU boss Bertrand Belinguier said that Pari Mutuel Urbain is in a different situation from other gambling operators, since it is involved only in horseracing and it returns all of its profits to racing. "There's a very big difference, which is why there is real concern among the professionals in France. They have seen what the uncontrolled opening of the betting market to bookmakers has done in Belgium and Germany, and they see what is happening in the UK, with falls in prize-money," said Belinguier. Read Related Articles:
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