French gambling authority ARJEL issued nine new licenses for online companies, five of which went to poker rooms. Sportsbetting sites CanalWin (a cooperation between TV company Canal+ and Ladbrokes) and Jeux 365, together with Geny Infos and Zeturf France with horse race as main profile were given the another four. Licenses are required to operate legally in France due to a formerly introduced regulation of online gambling.
The poker licenses went to Rekop (fulltiltpoker.fr), PKR France SAS (pkr.fr), FullFun (pokerxtrem.fr), LB Poker (barrierepoker.fr) and AD Astra (pokersubito.fr). Of the five, casino and hotel chain Barrière is a newcomer to online play, while AD Astra and FullFun are to join 888 and Microgaming in their network on the French market, according to EGR Magazine.
To date, 27 licenses were issued by ARJEL in all.
