ARJEL is an online gaming regulator located in France that works as an independent administrative authority for all things gaming, including poker. The group follows gaming options in the area and they have recently stumbled across an instance with Partouche Poker and documents have surfaced about an investigation involving the gambling group.
According to a recent article published by Mediapart and reported on by Pokerfuse.com, ARJEL is currently investigating the poker group, specifically certain poker accounts. According to Mediapart, internal documents were leaked that showed the Groupe Partouche had given certain family members cash as well as free tournament tickets via the Partouche.fr site. This is against regulations of ARJEL and the group is currently looking into these findings.
With the investigation, Yohan Zenou is the focus. Yohan is closely related to Katy Zenou, a board member of the Partouche group. Yohan has allegedly earned free tournament tickets since April 2011, which total over €36,000. With these tickets, Yohan has supposedly cashed out for around €27,500.
This case is not one of cheating but of breaking the ARJEL regulations. According to the regulations, employees and family members are not allowed to play on any related poker sites (examples of such can be found at portals such as ours or TexasHoldemOnline.org). Right now, the investigation is focused on 40 accounts at the site. Each account has been opened under pseudonyms and the majority of these accounts have been found to be owned by employees of the Groupe Partouche.
The report showed that one of the 40 accounts is owned by Patrick Partouche, the head of the Partouche family and the chair of the Partouche Supervisory Board. According to the Mediapart report, a Groupe Partouche PR representative has confirmed this and has stated that the actions do not ‘fit within the scope of the prohibition.’
A formal notice was supposedly sent to Partouche by ARJEL in late 2012 and the group had 3 months to comply with the formal notice. This formal notice was sent out after a security audit of the Partouche.fr site.
This is just one of many controversies that the Partouche group has been subject to. Just a short time ago, a video was released which alleged that the 2009 Partouche Poker Tour was subject of cheating. The video of the event footage can be viewed on YouTube and the poker group has been under fire due to the handling of this information by the group.
Before that, the group was criticized for the fact that they announced the new Partouche Poker Tour with a €5 million guarantee but then took the guarantee away. This caused major controversy on the poker community and definitely tarnished the Partouche name. After many changes, the tour then began this year to less than stellar turnout and two sites actually had to change the dates for satellites because the turnout was so low.
So, things are not going well for the Groupe Partouche. It will be interesting to see how this case unfolds and if the poker company will be subject to further controversy.
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