The French Competition Authority has imposed a fine of 900,000 euros on the PMU for having infringed the competition rules by not separating, for certain races, the bets recorded online and those recorded in the points of sale of its physical network .

Online gambling and betting have been open to competition since 2010, while betting at points of sale is still the monopoly of Pari Mutuel Urbain, the authority said in its press release.

In a first complaint against the PMU, the Authority had “expressed competition concerns, given the sharing by the PMU, in a single mass of issues, of all the bets recorded online and in hard », Or in its physical network, like tobacco shops for example. “This merger of the masses of issues increased the attractiveness of the horse racing betting offer on the pmu.fr site compared to its competitors, and risked affecting the conditions of competition with operators involved in the sale of online betting “, It is specified.

The Authority considered that the PMU did not respect its commitment made in 2014 “to separate its masses of hard and online stakes for foreign races subject to a joint mass partnership between the PMU and several foreign operators ”.

Recalling also that the PMU currently has five “common mass” partnerships with foreign operators concerning South African, Irish, American, Norwegian and Swedish races, it specifies that, “if it remains possible for the PMU to conclude partnerships on foreign races, these must not result in the merger of its online uploads and its hard uploads, under legal monopoly, in order to respect the commitment made ”.

It considers that “even if, in the present case, joint foreign races constitute only a limited part of the PMU’s horse racing betting activity, the breach is all the more serious since the commitment to separate the masses of issues was at the heart of the system aimed at preventing the PMU from making its pmu.fr site benefit from the importance of the masses of issues collected in its network of physical points of sale ”.