France | Budget 2025: the government plans to authorize online casinos, casinos fear closures

The government tabled an amendment this weekend providing for the authorization of online casinos as part of the 2025 draft budget. “This opening comes from bringing the gaming framework into line with our main European neighbors, France being , with Cyprus, the only country in the European Union to ban online casino games,” specifies the text of this amendment tabled on Saturday.

According to this amendment, “this ban has been accompanied by the development of a significant illegal supply in recent years. According to the study commissioned at the end of 2023 by the National Gaming Authority, the gross gaming revenue generated by the illegal offer of online gambling in France would be between 748 million and 1.5 billion euros, i.e. between 5% and 11% of the overall gambling market.

This is why, “this authorization must be accompanied by specific regulation which it is proposed to define, in conjunction with the National Gaming Authority and all the stakeholders concerned, by means of an ordinance”, specifies the amendment.

Thousands of jobs threatened?

Demanded for several years by online gaming operators, the legalization of online casinos in France is on the other hand criticized by physical establishments, who plead for this market to be reserved for them.

“According to our calculations, the opening to competition of the online casino will lead to a drop in the gross gaming revenue of land-based casinos of around 20 to 30%, and the closure of 30% of establishments,” warned Grégory Rabuel , president of the Casinos de France sector union and general manager of the Barrière group, in an interview with Les Échos published Monday.

“There will be catastrophic consequences, particularly social: it is estimated that 15,000 jobs will be lost. More generally, this amounts to signing the death warrant for land-based casinos,” he expressed concern, adding: “It is a completely thoughtless choice, without any consultation with the stakeholders. »

Gains for the State

And to further recall that there will be tax consequences “because the contributions paid to the municipalities will drop drastically. This will represent 450 million euros in losses per year for the State and communities. Large towns will be able to recover from this but this will not necessarily be the case for small towns: I am thinking of Châtel-Guyon or La Bourboule in Puy-de-Dôme, Villard-de-Lans in Isère or even Aix-les- Baths in Savoie”.

According to him, this authorization of online casinos will see between 20 and 30 players enter the market. “There will be the Française des jeux (which has just completed its takeover bid for Kindred) which also raises questions about the timing of this government decision. But also Betclic, Winamax… and dozens of other platforms which sometimes already operate illegally in France. Today, casinos are the only ones to legally offer this type of games. Tomorrow, there will be many more of us, which will require investing tens of millions of euros in advertising,” says Grégory Rabuel, asking Parliament not to vote for this amendment.

“In fact, the market already exists. So legalization would not take much away from the casinos” retorts a supporter of authorization to the AFP, estimating the gains for the State at 1 billion euros.