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Pari-Mutuel Urbain to Pay a €900,000 Fine for Anti-Competitive Misconduct
By Jeff Osienya Apr 12, 2020 IndustryPari-Mutuel Urbain (PMU) will have to part with €900,000 as a penalty imposed by the French’s Competition Authority. The French horse racing betting big shot resorted to anti-competitive means to stay ahead of their industry rivals.Pari-Mutuel Urbain (PMU), France’s leader in horse racing betting, has been hammered with a €900,000 fine by the FCA (French Competition Authority) for not separating online and retail betting liquidity for international races. This disregard of their operational commitments gave PMU an unfair edge that obliterated their competition.
Back in 2013, PMU pledged to hold online and retail betting funds in separate accounts for both domestic and international horse races. A year later, in 2014, FCA, the country’s competition oversight body ordered the same for all betting companies to ensure a level playing ground for all brands involved in the gaming business.
According to FCA’s statement, the horse racing company only did the offline and online liquidity separation for domestic races but never did the same for international markets.
Betclic and Zeturf which are iGaming companies in France as well, are the whistleblowers who reported to France’s competition watchdog after taking a closer look at PMU’s operations. Betclic and Zeturf found out that the company under fire offered similar odds and prize pools for both local and international markets through its online platform and brick and mortar betting kiosks.
Pari-Mutuel Urbain currently offers comprehensive coverage of horse races in different parts of the globe including the USA, Norway, Sweden, South Africa and Ireland, apart from France alone.
How did PMU Have an Unfair Advantage?
After investigations, The French Competition Authority revealed that PMU had been combining online betting and retail horse racing pools using funds channelled from PMU’s international players. After that, the funds were then tallied into one massive single jackpot effectively making their international racing equally as attractive as the domestic races through their retail betting kiosks and online betting platforms.
To ensure that PMU wouldn’t find ways to exploit loopholes in the wording of their commitments, the competition authority went further to explain that their 2014 order explicitly covered all forms of racing and not just the ones taking place in France alone. This, therefore, meant that Pari-Mutuel Urbain they had breached their compliance agreement.
The French online gambling regulator, ARJEL (L’Autorité de régulation des Jeux en ligne) also backed up the unanimous decision to impose a fine on PMU. The regulator added that PMU had drafted the commitment by itself, which only implies that there was no possible way it was admissible for them to have a separate set of rules for their offers of betting on international races.
PMU to Pay Betclic Additional Compensation
Thanks to their shady, anti-competitive gambling malpractices, Pari-Mutuel Urbain had an unfair advantage over their industry rivals who also offered horse racing pools in the country. Thus, on top of FCA’s fine, a French court also ordered PMU to pay an unspecified sum to Betclic as compensation as a penalty.
Since France started regulating the online gaming market back in 2010, PMU has solidified its position as the top horse racing betting provider with the largest market share in the country. Consequently, over the past decade, competition like Betclic and Zeturf have scrambled for the remnants of PMU’s dominance in the industry. Could this be partly due to their monopolistic tactics?
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