Even though online gambling is quite popular in the United States and has been for quite some time, legislation in Europe and the United Kingdom regarding the online gambling industry is progressing much faster than it is in the U.S. Internet gambling has been popular in both France and England for several years now and both countries exhibit a high rate of participation at Internet gambling sites. Between the two countries, however, the French have the highest rate of participation as it is estimated that the French gamble twice as much and three times as long as do their British counterparts. This is true in spite of the fact that land-based casino gambling is illegal in most regions of France and that the only online gambling options available to the French are state-managed operations such as Pari Mutuel Urbain lotto and the National Lottery. An inconsistency in Eu policy, regarding online gambling, has enabled French players to access online gambling sites and bypass the French law that prohibits online gambling.

One possible factor behind the popularity of the online casinos in France is the increased access to high-speed Internet connections, since most of the software for online casino games requires high-speed Internet connections. Some analysts of the industry, however, aren’t sure whether it is the increased access to high-speed Internet connections driving the expanding popularity of Internet gambling, or Internet gambling that is fueling the demand for high-speed Internet connections. Spain’s population, for example, spends a relatively minor amount of time at Internet gambling sites in spite of their large high-speed Internet market.