France now may be moving forward towards regulating online gambling within the country. Earlier this month the French National Assembly voted to allow competition between private online gambling businesses and state-owned betting organizations in order to gain from the nation’s Internet gambling market.

However, some are skeptical that it may not be all it’s cracked up to be, as the private sector of the gambling market in France was uncertain of the outcome of such a bill being passed before the French government even brought it up. The Remote Gambling Association (RGA), predicts that France’s online market will become “wholly unattractive and in most cases completely unviable.” Once regulations are put into place and taxes imposed by this new gambling legislation are enacted on private companies, the industry will quickly become unfeasible and unpractical.

The European Gambling and Betting Association (EGBA) supported the RGA’s stance against the new laws, agreeing that they would ultimately be detrimental to the private gambling sector in France. Sigrid Liné, EGBA Secretary General, suggested that a cohesive relationship between government-owned and private gambling firms is “a long way off,” especially in terms of reasonable conditions being offered to private companies.

The assembly vote consisted of 302 votes for private sector gambling (all from the same two political parties) and 206 against it (from most of the remaining six parties). Since the government of France operates within an eight-party system, passing by 96 votes from only two parties raises concern that once the bill reaches the Senate, it won’t be well-received.