Shared iPoker Liquidity Missing From French Draft Digital Bill

Online poker requires a critical level of liquidity in order to maintain a competitive and attractive playing environment for players. Therefore, it is no wonder that the ring-fenced markets of France, Spain and Italy have seen their iPoker revenues suffering since regulation was introduced a few years ago.
Recently, however, there were murmurings that these countries were coming round to the idea of pooling their players to give their respective markets a lift, but that hope now appears to be overly optimistic after the latest draft version of France’s ‘Bill for a Digital Republic’ (Digital Bill) contained no references to amendments that would have paved the way towards sharing player liquidity with other countries.
In February, ARJEL President Charles Coppolani seemed to have received all the assurance he needed in order to pursue his pro-liquidity sharing campaign after France’s secretary of state for the budget, Christian Eckert, indicated he would add such a provision to his draft Digital Bill. As Eckert commented at the time:
“It is from this perspective, rather than a sectoral approach, that we want to treat poker”.
Despite his apparent U-turn on the issue, however, there are still hopes that the country may still chose to end its ring-fenced market policy, as lawmakers have decided to open up the Digital Bill for public discussion before eventually making the piece of legislation law in 2016. This “unprecedented” move not only allows French citizens the chance to more directly have their concerns taken into consideration by politicians, but also helps address the increasing level of distrust which French residents have towards their government officials.
Furthermore, the Commission for the Assessment and Control (CEC) is also set to deliberate the Digital Bill in the coming weeks, potentially offering more possibilities of specific clauses being included in the legislation to allow for international pool sharing arrangements.
In the meantime, France’s online poker market continues to contract, and while Q1 2013 saw €72 million generated in revenues, by Q1 2014 that figure had dropped to €65 million, before falling further in Q1 2015 to just €61 million.