What it is and what it covers
#The Autorité Nationale des Jeux took over French gambling regulation in 2020, succeeding ARJEL with a wider remit covering online licensed games, the national lottery and betting monopolies, and oversight of land-based casinos' gaming activity alongside the interior ministry.
Online, France licenses exactly three verticals: sports betting, horse race betting and poker. Online casino games, slots, roulette, blackjack, have no licence category at all: offering them to French residents is illegal, and a public consultation on legalising them has been suspended since late 2024 with no timetable.
What its licence guarantees you
#On the licensed verticals, ANJ-approved operators owe players identity verification, moderation tools including deposit and stake limits, and participation in the national self-exclusion system. The ANJ approves each operator's annual promotional strategy and gambling-harm action plan, an unusual degree of upstream control.
The voluntary exclusion register covers casinos, gaming clubs and every licensed online operator at once, runs for a minimum of three years, cannot be revoked during that period, and since 2025 can be completed online with identity verification.
What it does not do
#The ANJ cannot protect anyone on the sites French players actually use for casino games, because none of them are licensed to exist. Illegal offshore sites serve that demand, the ANJ blocks them at the network level in a running game of whack-a-mole, and a French player on such a site has no register coverage, no dispute channel and no local law on their side.
This is the sharpest example on this site of a principle worth generalising: prohibition removes the protections without removing the product.
How to check a licence
#The ANJ publishes the list of approved operators on anj.fr. For casino games the check is even simpler: there are no legal online casinos in France, so any site offering them to French players is operating illegally, whatever foreign licence it displays.
Questions, answered
Are online casinos really illegal in France?
Yes. No licence category exists for online casino games, so every site offering slots or roulette to French residents operates illegally there. Only sports betting, horse racing and poker are licensed online. A consultation on legalisation was suspended in late 2024 and has not resumed.
What happens if I play on an offshore casino from France?
You are outside the entire French protective system: the self-exclusion register does not reach the site, no French dispute channel exists, and if the site refuses to pay, no French regulator can help. The site is breaking French law; the consequences of that arrangement mostly land on the player.
How does French self-exclusion work?
One request covers casinos, gaming clubs and all licensed online operators for a minimum of three years, irrevocable during that period. Since 2025 the process can be completed online with identity verification, at interdictiondejeux.anj.fr.
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