Online gambling is a transnational issue with transnational benefits and problems. One of the great things is that players from around the world can gamble with people in other jurisdictions. One of the biggest problems is, well, the same thing.

That is one of the reasons that communication between regulators is important. Online gambling regulators in one country can warn their counterparts in another nation about a specific scam or problem they are seeing. They can also work together to create a more efficient regulatory network. Since France passed a law to regulate online gambling market last year, their regulatory agency, ARJEL, has worked closely with the regulator in Italy, AAMS.

Sometime in June, the two groups plan to make their partnership official. They will formally sign a Memorandum of Understanding, also known as an MoU. By working closely, the Autorite de Regulation des Jeux En Ligne and l’Amministrazione Autonoma dei Monopoli di Stato will create working groups to make it easier to share information.

A member of AAMS recently told the media about the upcoming MoU, but said he didn’t know when in June it was expected to happen. He said working together makes sense because both regulators “have similar business models and share several licenses.” He also said that the two regulators “already discuss areas such as collusion, integrity, player protection” and recently discussed how to respond to Black Friday and the challenges the American policies pose. With other EU countries, such as Spain, heading toward liberalized online gambling, you wonder if the two regulators will begin sharing information with them as well.

One small consolation for people who have the unfortunate circumstance to live in France is that they now have another good option for online poker. Titan Poker has launched a new online poker room tailored to the French market.

Many online gambling operators are unhappy with the French government’s regulations, with a BetClic chairman even calling them the “worst online gambling laws in Europe.” Due to government rules that are both restrictive, high taxing and bad for the players (an 85% cap on rate of return), it’s difficult for gambling websites to make money in France. Despite that, Titan Poker is giving it the old college try.

France’s regulatory agency for internet gambling, ARJEL, recently awarded Titan Poker with a gambling license and certification. On the heels of that victory – and it is a victory, since it’s so hard to get licensed in France – the company launched a new dedicated website, Titan.fr.

Though the new online poker games are not yet available, those who visit the website are welcomed with a greeting that says “Decouvrez I’univers Titan.fr tres prochainement.” What, did you expect it to be in English? While I don’t know what that sentence or any of the 7 paragraphs that follow it say, I can take a wild guess. I believe the page can be paraphrased as saying “welcome to the new Titan Poker website, the most awesome poker website in France. Play poker with us. Please. It cost us a lot of money to get this license.”

Somewhere on that page it might say when the actual poker rooms will be operational, but I don’t know enough French (i.e. any French) to figure that out. It was only last month that Titan Poker received permission from France to operate in the country, so it may take some time.

Titan Poker is one of the largest and most respected online poker rooms in the business. They tout themselves as the third-largest poker website in the world, behind only PokerStars and PartyPoker.

Ah, government regulation. Many online poker players and proponents of online casinos support governments regulating online gambling because that gives them easier access to the games. In some countries, it would also take a currently illegal activity and make it legal. There is a problem that goes along with government regulation, though. Actually, there are many problems, but a major one is money. You see, governments aren’t going to regulate an industry out of the kindness of their hearts. They do it for tax revenue.

France recently opened up their online gambling market to foreign operators so online casinos based overseas could attract French customers. This was seen as a victory for supporters of online gambling in France. However, the legislation also mandated a 2% tax increase on all new online gambling sites. Those are sites that are new or new to the French market. For that reason, all overseas online casinos that entered the French market were slapped with a 2% tax increase.

Liberals and other people who know nothing about business would say, “So what? Those rich casinos can afford to pay more money. I don’t care if their taxes went up, since it doesn’t affect me.” The problem is, whenever you raise taxes on businesses it does affect you. It affects anyone who is a customer or partner of that business and anyone employed by that business. When hit with a higher tax, businesses will usually pass that extra cost on to their customers. That is exactly what online casinos are doing.

Most online poker sites operating in the French market have increased the rake by 2%. Some of those casinos and poker rooms are reporting rakes as high as 7.7%. That means it is costing the online poker players a lot of money and they are not too happy about it.

To protest the higher rakes, many online poker players have organized “sit out” protests. This method has the players signing up at poker tables but then refusing to play. With them occupying the table, no one else can take their spot and the casino loses money. Their goal is to force the online casinos and poker rooms to lower the rake percentage. The casinos, however, say that they have been losing money ever since France enacted the new gambling laws and instituted the tax increase and the only way they can remain profitable is to increase the rake.

And there you have the problem. The government running an industry is always bad for the industry, but it’s even worse for the consumers. The poker players don’t want to pay the high rake, but it’s necessary for the casinos to stay in business thanks to the tax hike by the government. Without that additional tax revenue, though, the government would not allow the casinos to operate in their country. It is a situation where nobody wins.