Jean-François Vilotte to step down from ARJEL president role in January

He will be providing further details on his next move later in the week during a press conference set to highlight ARJEL’s forthcoming campaign aimed at the general public and professional athletes, provide further information on setting up international norms to fight corruption and fraud in sports betting and further details on regulations forbidding athletes to place bets on events in which they are involved.

Vilotte has been in charge of ARJEL since 2009 and was responsible for setting up the regulator as France went through the process of establishing its igaming regulations, he has overseen the market since it opened in 2010.

He has been proactive in calling for a change of the tax system for online betting from turnover to gross profits and opening online poker to liquidity sharing among regulated markets, although these projects are still not finalised.

France’s online betting sector has found its feet in the past 18 months but the online poker sector is struggling badly, while private operators of online horse racing totes will watch closely as the time-frame for PMU to split its off-online liquidities is set by France’s Competition Authority.