PMU Faces Competition Complaint

Betclic files the claim against former monopoly A report came this week that online gaming company Betclic has filed a claim of unfair competition against Pari Mutuel Urbaine (PMU) with the French Competition Authority. The trigger for this complaint lies in the fact that at the moment PMU holds 85 percent share of the horse race betting sector in the French market, a fact that caused a long running debate on the advantages this former-French monopoly PMU seems to have kept even in the newly regulated market. Back when the market was about to open up, the European Gaming and Betting Association recommended that PMU be compelled to use different branding, and to introduce changes to the pooling of stakes on complex bets. Still, it seems that the problem prevails. As Jean-Francois Vilotte, president of ARJEL recently commented, the gap between PMU and other operators "is a problem of competition law". He also said that he had forwarded these concerns on to the Competition Authority.