Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) Review

What Is the Autorité Nationale des Jeux?

The ANJ is an independent administrative authority (autorité administrative indépendante) created by an ordinance of 2 October 2019, during the privatisation of La Française des Jeux (FDJ). It became operational in June 2020, replacing ARJEL, which had regulated online gambling since the 12 May 2010 law that opened French online betting and poker to competition. Where ARJEL covered only online play, the ANJ regulates the whole market under one roof.

• Leadership: a nine-member college. Pascal Chevremont has been president since June 2026, succeeding Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, who led the ANJ from its creation. A separate sanctions commission of judges decides penalties.
• Size: about 80 staff and a 2025 budget of €12.2 million, based in Issy-les-Moulineaux, just outside Paris.
• Remit: licensed online sports betting, horse betting and poker; the exclusive rights of FDJ (lottery and retail sports betting) and PMU (retail horse betting); and the prevention of excessive gambling in land-based casinos, which are otherwise supervised by the Interior Ministry.

Its four statutory goals are preventing excessive gambling and protecting minors, keeping games honest and transparent, balancing the different gambling sectors, and fighting fraud and money laundering. Its 2024-2026 strategic plan puts one target above the rest: cutting the share of operators’ revenue that comes from excessive players.

What Gambling Is Legal Online in France?

French law allows only three types of online gambling to be licensed. Everything else played online for money is illegal:

How an ANJ Licence Works

An ANJ licence (agrément) is granted for one product category at a time (sports betting, horse betting or poker) and lasts five years. It can be renewed but not sold or transferred. Any company established in the EU or EEA can apply, unless it’s based in a jurisdiction France lists as non-cooperative. The ANJ has four months to decide, and silence counts as refusal.

The technical demands are what set France apart:

• A data vault (coffre): every licensee must record every player action in a certified digital vault that the ANJ can inspect, certified within six months of launch and every year after.
• Software approval: every game platform must be approved by the ANJ before use; it granted 106 approvals in 2025.
• Payout cap: betting operators may not pay back more than 85% of stakes on average. Several have been fined for exceeding it.
• A licence can be lost: in May 2026 the ANJ revoked the licence of the Vibrez! brand after a change of owner, because licences can’t be transferred.

The ANJ doesn’t publish licence fees. These are the 16 operators on its list of licensed operators on 16 October 2026:

France Gambling Tax: Among the Highest in Europe

Since 2020 French online gambling has mostly been taxed on gross gaming revenue (stakes minus winnings). The 2025 social security budget raised the burden sharply from 1 July 2025:

Player Protection at ANJ-Licensed Sites

An ANJ licence comes with protections built into every account:

• Limits before you play: you must set a weekly deposit limit before your first deposit and a weekly betting limit before your first bet. Poker sites must also ask for a playing-time limit. You also set an automatic withdrawal threshold.
• Self-exclusion at the operator: any length from 24 hours to 12 months, always available.
• The national ban: every licensed site must check the ANJ’s national exclusion file before letting anyone play (see below).
• Age and identity checks: 18+ only, with identity, age, address and payment account verified.
• Excessive-play detection: operators must spot and support excessive players and leave them out of marketing.

The ANJ’s own data show why this matters. In May 2026 it published results from an algorithm it developed: about 600,000 online players, 8.7% of account holders, show a high probability of excessive play, and they generate 60% of online gambling revenue. In July 2026 an operator was fined €500,000 for failing to identify and support such players.

Advertising is allowed but managed. Every operator must submit its annual promotional strategy for ANJ approval, and for 2026 the ANJ told all operators not to exceed their announced budgets after planned spending jumped 25% to €785 million in a World Cup year. Public-health groups such as Addictions France say that isn’t enough, and Parliament rejected the ANJ’s proposal for a ban on betting ads around live matches in July 2026.

Complaints: The Gambling Mediator

France gives players something many regulators don’t: an official mediator (médiateur des jeux) for disputes with licensed operators and with FDJ and PMU. Since December 2024 the role has been held by Jérôme Gallot. Here’s how it works:

1. Complain to the operator in writing first. About 90% of inadmissible cases in 2025 were rejected because this step was skipped.
2. Wait for the answer, or 20 days. Then you can refer the dispute to the mediator online, by post or by email to [email protected].
3. Admissibility is decided within three weeks, and the operator is asked to respond within 20 days.
4. You get a proposed solution, usually within about a month (the legal maximum is 90 days). It isn’t binding, and you can still go to court.

The mediator received 1,856 requests in 2025, up 20%, over 90% of them about sports betting. Typical disputes involve blocked or closed accounts, slow withdrawals, bet settlement and welcome offers. 64% of the mediator’s proposals were accepted in 2025, up from 46% in 2024, though the mediator noted that Winamax withdrew from more than a third of its cases. The mediator can’t help with illegal sites.

How to Check if a French Betting Site Is ANJ Licensed

Checking takes a minute:

1. Open the ANJ’s list of licensed operators and find the operator and the exact website address.
2. Check the domain. Every licensed French site in the list uses a .fr address. A .com version of a brand isn’t covered.
3. Check what it offers. If a site offers slots, roulette or blackjack to French players, it isn’t legal, whatever licence it claims.
4. Don’t rely on the blacklist alone. The ANJ publishes a list of blocked sites but says it’s not exhaustive: a site that isn’t on the licensed list is illegal even if it hasn’t been blocked yet.

Enforcement: Blocking the Illegal Market

Since a law of 2 March 2022, the ANJ president can order internet providers to block illegal gambling sites, and search engines to delist them, without going to court. Blocking that used to take six to nine months through a judge now takes about two:

French Betting Sites, Poker Rooms and Casinos

The legal online market is big: €2.6 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2025, from 4.2 million players with 6.1 million accounts. Sports betting made up €1.77 billion, poker €525 million and horse betting €326 million. Betclic, Winamax, Unibet, PMU, bet365 and PokerStars are among the best-known licensed brands, and Winamax and PokerStars dominate online poker.

If you’re searching for a French online casino, there’s no legal one. Offshore sites that accept French players, often licensed in Curaçao or elsewhere, operate illegally in France: you get no limits, no national ban check and no mediator. As we review French-licensed betting and poker operators, they appear automatically in the list at the bottom of this page, ranked by FAQsino Trust Score.

Real casinos are a different story. France has around 200 land-based casinos, run by groups such as Barrière and Partouche, which took €2.8 billion in 2025 from 31.6 million visits. They’re licensed and supervised by the Interior Ministry, with the ANJ responsible only for their excessive-gambling prevention plans.

France vs Spain, Germany and the UK

How France compares with the other large European regulated markets:

Our Verdict on the Autorité Nationale des Jeux

Inside its legal market, the ANJ delivers some of Europe’s strongest player protection: compulsory limits at sign-up, a national ban that covers online sites, FDJ, PMU and casinos alike, an 85% payout cap, its own excessive-play algorithm, and a free mediator whose proposals are now accepted two times in three. Its reports are detailed and its blocking powers are real.

The weaknesses sit at the edges. Fines are modest for a €14 billion market and usually anonymised, advertising pressure keeps rising despite its efforts, and the ban on online casino leaves a sizeable illegal market that blocking alone can’t shut.

For players in France, the rule is simple: bet and play poker only on .fr sites from the ANJ’s licensed list, and treat any online casino offer as illegal.