Many feared that the French presidential election would be the next big event to hit the global political scene with a massive earthquake. And such a political tremor would have come at a time when we are still struggling with the aftershocks of last summer’s Brexit vote and last fall’s election of former casino mogul Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.
Last Sunday, France elected Emmanuel Macron as its new President. Mr. Macron, a former Minister of the Economy and a first-time presidential candidate, took 66% of the vote to his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen’s 34%.
In the wake of a number of terrorist attacks around France, fear of terrorism has grown increasingly. This in turn has fueled anti-immigration sentiment among many French citizens. Despite this fact, Ms. Le Pen’s immigration opposing viewpoints often raised eyebrows and were probably among the factors that cost her the presidential post.
Another highlight in the National Front’s leader manifesto was her stance on France’s EU membership. Ms. Le Pen promised that if elected, she would call a referendum on the EU after her first six months into office.
A Le Pen victory could have embroiled the future of the European Union in great uncertainty and the bloc could have seen one of its founding members negotiate and even terminate its membership.
And in the context of the European online gambling industry, a Le Pen victory could have had a very unpleasant impact on ongoing shared online poker liquidity talks. France became the leading shared liquidity negotiator after amending its gambling laws last summer in a manner that allowed its iGaming regulator, ARJEL, to initiate discussions with regulatory bodies from other countries over the creation of an online poker network.
However, a Eurosceptic President would have created numerous complications that could have threatened shared liquidity progress significantly. Luckily for the future of online poker, France elected a seriously pro-European President instead.
Speaking of the future of European online poker, shared liquidity will may very soon become a fact and not just a mere concept thrown into discussions only to be greatly neglected soon after. Regulators from involved countries – that is France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal – have confirmed progress on the matter, and as Casino News Daily has reported recently, first shared liquidity agreements are expected to be signed by mid-2017. If that plan is fulfilled, a first merged network may be launched by the end of the year.
The move is hoped to encourage greater activity at online poker premises serving the online poker markets of the above-mentioned four countries. What these four share in common is the fact that they all segregated their poker markets upon regulation.
Although ring-fencing was perceived as a measure that would protect local players from black market operators and illegal activities, it actually sent them to those same black market operators and hit the regulated market severely. Many see shared liquidity as the savior of the stagnant European online poker, but it is yet to be seen whether it will bring about the desired effect and whether this desired effect will be maintained.
