A focus on the new panorama of French online gambling

For all sports fans, the month of June 2010 is an interesting time, especially with the World Cup in South Africa.
For the occasion, you might have noticed, we have changed the design of our website.
We have also posted on this blog a selection of the 8 best football-related casino-games.
Please let us know what you think of our initiatives.
On the other hand, for many French fans of online gambling, this month is mainly synonymous with the enforcement of the new law on the regulation of online poker and horse-race and sports bets on the Internet.
On Monday, June 8th, the Authority on the Regulation of Online Gambling (ARJEL – Autorité de Régulation des Jeux en Ligne) finally published the list of the 11 operators who have obtained the precious French gambling license.
Betclic Enterprises Limited and Betsurf will now be allowed to legally offer online horse-racing bets.
As for online poker, the selected companies are Betclic Enterprises Limited, BES SAS, Everest Gaming Limited, PMU, Sajoo, SPS Betting France and Table 14.Finally, Betclic Enterprises Limited, BES SAS, La Française des jeux, France Pari, Illiad Gaming, PMU, Sajoo and SPS Betting France have obtained a license for online sports bets on the Internet.
As you probably already know, online casinos are totally absent of this new regulation and are not liberalised.
Some companies like William Hill and many others which used a Playtech software platform have decided to withdraw from the French market.
In this country, not only do online casinos not accept any new players, but they have also deleted the accounts of all their customers.
With the departure of many important companies, new ones have jumped on the occasion to start on the French market.
Three online casinos which offer games previously unreleased in France have just been translated into French.
Please welcome Ruby Royal, EU Casino and WinPalace.
The first uses a Rival software which offers great slot machines called i-Slots.
We recommend you try the masterpieces that are A Switch in Time and Spy Game, among others.
If you already have, wouldn’t you agree these slots are totally made of win?
Don’t be shy and give us some feedback in the comments section.
EUCasino uses software designed by SkillOnNet.
Unfortunately, the quality of its games sometimes suffers from their outdated graphics, especially when compared the Betsoft masterpieces like Heist or Netent‘s latest releases like Gonzo’s Quest.
EUCasino slot machines nevertheless offer quite an interesting gaming content and are rather fun to play, as it is shown by the great video slots that are Crazy Farm Race and Secret Agent, for example.
We have a clear penchant for the latter, with its graphics inspired from comic books and Pop art which are reminiscent of the work of the American painter Roy Lichtenstein.
By the way, we were at first consideringa Pop art design for Casino Lemonade, before choosing to go for a steampunk/Art Deco style.
Finally, let’s talk about WinPalace, which uses software developed by RealTime Gaming, or RTG.
Whereas this platform is quite well-known in the US and the UK since it is used by Bodog, a highly reputed site, it is the first time it is offered in French on the online casino WinPalace.
You will now be able to play Ronin or Derby Dollars in this language.
Unfortunately, the great Dirty Martini slot machine, created as a tribute to Calvin Ayre, Bodog’s famous CEO, is not on offer as it is exclusive to his online casino.
If you try out all the RTG games available on Casino Lemonade, you might be slightly disappointed by some of them.
The developer has only converted a handful of them into flash.
New releases also are not available without download.
For these reasons, the RTG offer is much better and varied on WinPalace.
We recommend that, after trying out a few slot machines here, you then download the WinPalace software, even if you are not quite convinced by what you have seen so far.
As a conclusion, even if online casinos are excluded from French legislation, which made some well-known companies to abandon the market, some talented newcomers will make us forget how unfair French legislation is.Let us all give a warm welcome to these 3 new online casinos: Ruby Royal, EUCasino and WinPalace.
Have fun trying them out!