Winamax Launches French Daily Fantasy Sports Market

Winamax, a French operator, has broken ground on the French daily fantasy sports market with the launch of  Le Jeu de l’Entraineur (JDE) (the Coach’s Game) game.
Could this the beginning of something tres grand?
The company is the first and, as of this writing, the only operator with its hooks in this totally unproven market.
The Coach’s Game is a pretty standard daily fantasy sports game that’s being presented with a celebrity endorsement. French national team manager Raymond Domenech. Each week, Domenech will be making his own picks and providing DFS analysis for the country’s legion of new daily fantasy sports players.
Players will have the option of picking five-man squads or full-teams for their DFS rosters throughout the French Ligue 1 season. As of launch, players will only be able to participate in leagues with stakes of €2, €10 and €50. It’s anticipated that larger entries will be available as the market matures, according to a report on LegalSportsReport.com.
So how do French gaming regulators view daily fantasy sports on the skill-vs-chance spectrum? The French fall squarely on the side of skill and have lumped the game alongside other games of skill including sports betting, horse race betting and online poker.
In fact, there was almost no debate among French gaming regulators as to how the game should be categorized at all.
French authorities have also spelled out, in great detail, the rules for Franco-facing daily fantasy sports and seem keen to keep a lid on the internal DFS industry shenanigans that have cause so much trouble for the US-facing DFS businss.