Poker News - Texas Holdem Comes to France

A recent French holdem decree clears the way for Texas Hold 'Em tournaments in French casinos.

THE FRENCH POKER SCENE

Casino poker was legalized in France with a December 2006 law. Since that time, French casino operators have been confused about how far the law reaches. Both the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour scheduled events at famous French casinos, only to see those events cancelled when the lawyers couldn't say for certain whether hosting tournaments would be legal.
Now the way is clear for televised poker in France. At least 200 French casinos will be allowed to host poker cash games.

This ruling was made on May 17, after months of negotiations between the French authorities and gambling interests. Some of these interests are unwilling at the moment to state their plans for this new era of French gambling, saying they want to study the new laws.

POKER ROOMS

Among the casino groups included on this list are the Barriere, Tranchant and Moliflor casino empires. Each of these group owns 15 to 30 casinos.

The Partouche Group, which owns 50 French casinos, are moving ahead with plans to install poker rooms in all their casinso. A spokesman said Partouche wants 50 poker rooms in 50 casinos.

TEXAS HOLDEM IN FRANCE

Texas Holdem had been played at a few select casinos throughout France during 2006. This was after the passage of the Protocol for Responsible Gaming, which allowed poker for certain struggling casinos. A second motive of this program was to study how casino poker games would operate in French casinos.

Before this newest poker initiative, poker was only available in French "gaming circles". Gaming circles were poker games between individuals, in private rooms which were labaled "commercial games". Casinos could not take their part of the action. These gaming circles were found mainly in the larger casinos mainly in Paris, but in a few of the other cities, as well.

The gaming circles already seem like a distant memory in France. Once again, legalized gambling seems to be expanding everywhere in the world except the United States.

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Poker News - Texas Holdem Comes to France