Jean-Francois Vilotte, the outgoing president of France’s igaming regulator ARJEL, has outlined his organisation’s campaign to combat betting corruption and match-fixing by addressing professional athletes directly and said he would remember his time at the head of ARJEL as one “where a fascinating page was written”.
ARJEL’s new press, TV and online campaign will warn sportsmen and women not to harm the image of their sport as well as their own. Vilotte explained how ARJEL would also cross-reference its betting records with those of sporting federations’ members to see if they had placed bets on events in which they were involved.
“Such a set up is unique in Europe,” he said, “we want to establish collaborative projects across the region that would see the establishment of measures to detect and implement a convention to combat match-fixing and corrupt betting.”
Reflecting on his four years at the head of ARJEL, he hailed the Authority’s work in regulating France’s igaming sector in complete independence from politicians. However, he also pointed out the authorities’ lack of reactivity when it came to adapting to market conditions or changing the taxation system and opening up poker liquidities between the EU regulated markets of France, Spain and Italy. These recommendations were all made by ARJEL at regular intervals over the past three years but never acted upon by the French authorities.
He also told iGaming Business that the spot-fixing scandal that has come to light in the UK recently showed that unethical betting practices could reach the highest levels of sport.
As to the reasons why an increasing number of such scandals were cropping up in the UK, Vilotte said “the ability to bet on every aspect of a sporting contest” played a role and that it could be time to look more closely at the relationship between “online bookmakers who gain exposure in Asia by sponsoring football teams simply by being licensed in the Isle of Man or Alderney”.
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
