French online market not for us right now, says Sportingbet

UK online gambling group Sportingbet.com has announced that it is not at present planning to enter the French market, and has accordingly abandoned its b2b plans with French newspapers Le Monde and L’Express. The company has also shut down its small 4 person physical presence in France.
Sportingbet is known to have reservations regarding the commercial viability and the high taxation applied to dedicated French operations.
However, it appears that the company has not entirely abandoned entering the sector at some future point, continuing with technical preparations to ensure compliance with French regulatory requirements, and monitoring economic developments.
Some weeks ago, Sportingbet CFO Jim Wilkinson warned in a media interview that the company may not immediately follow through on its French partnerships
Wilkinson said that Sportingbet’s technological compliance with the French regulator ARJEL’s requirements will be complete by the end of Q1/2011, but that an application for a licence must hinge on whether operations are commercially viable and can deliver a profit.

Related and similar