Denis MAZEAUD - Professor (université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas)
Astrid MARAIS - Professor (université de Bretagne occidentale)
Marie-Claude NAJM KOBEH - Professor (université Saint Joseph - Liban)
Jean-Louis SOURIOUX - Professor
Games of chance were known and practiced by man since the earliest civilizations. But all the way since the greco-roman antiquity, these games have attracted the ire of moralists, clergymen and legislators, each for their own motives.
Strict laws were enacted by the Antiquity legislators, laws that were later upheld by canonists and jurists of the Old law, as well as the civil Code editors, in order to eliminate, or at least confine this recreational practice. But the human desire to enjoy these games of chance was stronger than these laws, and the practice survived.
Over the course of the 20th century, and while certain States around the world chose absolute prohibition, others, like France, opted for a controlled authorization under the auspices of the State. Thus was created the prohibition-monopoly-exception triptych, under which gambling grew considerably.
And when the technological development allowed games of chance to be provided through the internet, the gambling industry reached in France and around the world, limits never known before in the course of the human history.
But this exceptional development has brought new challenges along, mainly in the finance and security areas, but also at the European legal level where the French monopoly model was criticized.
To take up these challenges, new laws were enacted in recent years. But all fell short of the challenges scale. The task was initiated, but most of the work remains to be done