News

Monday, 09 August 2010 11:41

Already the number two online poker provider in the world, Full Tilt Poker, has officially announced their French site fulltiltpoker.fr is open for business.

The new poker site gives French players the chance to get some action on the Full Tilt Poker brand online in poker rooms exclusively available for residents in France and those residing in the country's territories. This is thanks to the online gaming regulations that have recently been established by the French government.

Up until 26th July 2010, Full Tilt Poker had been unable to provide paying customers in France with access to their services while their application for the necessary licence was ongoing. Their website displayed a message to anyone trying to log in from that country to inform then that the site was unable to accept money transactions while their license application was ongoing, but that the service would be available as soon as was possible.

It was on 26th July that France's Authority of Regulation of Online Games (ARJEL) granted the license for Full Tilt poker to operate legally in France and its territories after having fully met all the necessary specification requirements for their license. This was the official blessing that the poker company was waiting for and which enabled them to finally open their cyber doors to French poker players.

There are currently two French professional poker players making up part of the Full Tilt Red Pro team at fulltiltpoker.fr. David Benyamine is a WSOP bracelet winner and has also won the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris. Pascal ‘PPTHEBANDIT’ Perrault is a champion of the European Poker Tour.

The latest traffic report for online poker sites provided by pokerscout.com shows that fulltiltpoker.fr is attracting 235 players on average at its site and has a world ring game traffic ranking of 25th. The French market is currently lead by pokerstars.fr which also ranks 9th worldwide in traffic and attracts 1,520 players on average over 7 days, while Everest Poker is 10th with 1,280 players on average over 7 days.

ARJEL granted and issued its first 11 licenses in June, to companies including Bwin, Paddy Power, PartyGaming, BetClic, Everest Poker and ChiliGaming. Other operators to be granted licenses in July were PokerStars, Microgaming and iPoker. This brings the total number of licenses allowing legal online gambling services in France issued by ARJEL to 27.