PMU ordered to separate online and retail

French operator Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) has until September 30, 2015 to separate its online horse race activity from it retail business.

The French Competition Authority, l’Autorité de la concurrence, ruled on the long running complaint initially filed by BetClic in January 2012, who said PMU’s online business unfairly benefitted from sharing liquidity with its already established retail business.

PMU, one of eight operators, dominates the horse race betting market in France with a market share of around 85 percent in 2013, equating to almost Euro 8 Billion through retail and Euro 1 Billion through online.

The authority ruled that as PMU’s online competitors did not have similar resources they were unable to compete with PMU’s attractive offers, therefore, creating the likely risk of marginalisation, threatening existing online competitors’ business and possibly created a barrier to new operators’ entry into the market.

PMU, who has committed to the separation, will need to create different brand identities for its retail and online businesses among other terms.