A jackpot of 40 million euros for casinos hard! Nothing goes for casinotiers French! To help in these difficult times and to encourage them to accept the opening of the online market, the French government has given them a gift of 40 million euros …
It is a breath of fresh air for the 200 French casinos. The Official Journal published a decree of the Ministry’s budget indicating that from this date, these institutions will benefit from tax measures in their favor amending the taxes on their sales. Clearly, the gradual removal of scales made from the gross gaming (PBJ), that is to say the turnover calculated on the difference between bets and winnings are modified in favor of casinos. They had not been since 1986.
It is a measure of simple justice by the Syndicat des casinos France. It will “support an industry that over two years, has experienced a downturn of 20%.
The 200 French casinos have registered for their last year of 2.553 billion euros PBJ, down 8.4% compared to last year. A downturn, according casinotiers, the entry into force of the smoking ban and the crisis that has arisen in France and competition from the French game and the PMU.
However, in late July, the Government had taken measures for the sector, including easing regulations for installation of slots machines in casinos, an activity which, with 20 000 machines spread across the country, reaches saturation. Therefore casinotiers are now allowed to use electronic versions of table games such as poker or roulette. Finally, several hundreds of slot machines in different casinos can be connected to form larger jackpots.
These measures should help address the development of online games available on the Internet including the legalization of the French territory must intervene early in the year 2010. According to several estimates, revenues from gambling on the Internet in 2009 should reach over 22 billion dollars (15.4 billion euros), representing 8% of revenues from casinos worldwide.
This legalization is bad news for the entire profession because it is mainly poker sites that thrive at the expense of anarchic casinotiers. Due to current legislation, the groups have in fact only established licensing agreements with an offshore company to exploit sites in their name. These sites are available in free version from France. According to a study released in May, casinos and the French cities that house should suffer from the opening games online. Withdrawals from the PBJ are in effect for 85% state and 15% in common that they provide, for some, a significant portion of the budget.
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