Unibet CEO Petter Nylander is set to travel to France on Wednesday, following his decision to consent to extradition, but the debate over the position of foreign gambling operators in France has intensified radically in the past few days and Nylander will find himself in the middle of a media storm where the state monopolies are making the running.

A recent conference held by the French parliament on the future of its online gaming regime highlighted some of the obstacles the draft bill faces if a reform is to be adopted by the beginning of the football World Cup in June.

Attention has been focussed this week on the continued detention of Unibet CEO Petter Nylander on charges relating to the protection of the French betting monopoly markets. But Unibet’s best hope of persuading the French courts to halt action against them is likely to reside in the favourable decision secured by Maltese operator Zeturf in France’s highest court earlier this year.

French budget minister Eric Woerth has confirmed that payments and IP blocking measures will accompany the anticipated opening of France’s online gambling market next year, and has reiterated that presently unregulated operators will remain prohibited from advertising their services until new laws take formal effect.

France’s highest court, La Cour de Cassation, has abrogated a judgment delivered against Zeturf Ltd and told the French Court of Appeal that it must take into account guidelines set by the European Court of Justice when reconsidering the case brought by the PMU against the Malta-based bookmaker.

Pari-Mutuel Urbain (PMU), the French horserace betting monopoly, has reported a 22 percent rise in internet bets taken during 2009 ahead of the liberalisation of France’s gambling market that will see the operator expand to a broader online sports betting offering later this year.

France’s Budget Minister is expected to present plans for a reform of France’s online gambling market to government colleagues today. The proposals are a first step towards the drafting of a new law in the Autumn, but professional sports leagues and private betting operators are both expressing concerns that the government is ducking the thorny issue of betting rights.

The Legal Gaming in Europe Summit, held last week in London to coincide with the International Casino Exhibition, is fast becoming an essential early season indicator of the progress being made by various European jurisdictions in overhauling their gambling markets. This year, news of positive developments in France and Spain was offset by far less encouraging information emerging out of Germany and Belgium.

France has decided to amend its legislation in order to allow European online gambling operators to offer their services in a regulated manner. This is a direct consequence of the infringement proceedings brought by the European Commission in June last year, of the ECJ rulings in Gambelli and Placanica, as well as of the landmark French Supreme Court decision in Zeturf.

France’s Budget Minister Eric Woerth met with the European Commission yesterday afternoon and reassured Brussels that no further actions would be taken against foreign operators in France, such as those that led to the recent arrest of Unibet CEO Petter Nylander. However, Woerth’s visit took place against the background of comments in the French press that his Government is unprepared to even allow fixed-odds horserace betting in their domestic market.