French regulator sets new benchmark for gambling risk checks
France’s gambling regulator is encouraging online operators to adopt its new player-risk algorithm, describing the tool as a way for companies to assess whether their detection systems are identifying enough excessive gamblers. The initiative is aimed at strengthening player protection and compliance in a French gambling sector that generated €14.1bn in gross gaming revenue in 2025.
“For operators, it is an optional tool made available to them in full transparency, which they can use as a barometer of compliance to measure whether their identification of excessive gamblers is at the right level,” the ANJ told SiGMA News. “The ANJ algorithm can be used alongside each operator’s own algorithms.”
The Autorité Nationale des Jeux has developed the model to estimate the share of excessive gambling within France’s account-based online market, including licensed online operators and account-based play at FDJ and PMU. The regulator says the tool is not intended to replace prevalence studies, nor to produce a medical diagnosis, but to give both operators and the ANJ a shared reference point for prevention work.
A tool built for compliance
France’s existing responsible gambling framework requires operators to identify customers showing signs of excessive or pathological play and to help them bring their gambling back under control. The regulator’s practical guide stresses that operators are not healthcare professionals and are not expected to diagnose players; their role is to detect a characterised level of risk from observable behaviour.
The new algorithm draws on 23 risk indicators covering financial movements, play frequency, use of moderation tools, player activity and previous history. Players are then grouped into four categories: recreational, moderate risk, excessive, and manifestly excessive. According to the ANJ, the model was validated against the Canadian Problem Gambling Index under the supervision of a scientific committee.
Operators have also been given technical documentation. “Operators received a detailed technical document setting out, transparently, the formulas used, to make it easier to use,” the ANJ told SiGMA News.
The regulator added that it wants operators to treat the algorithm as an additional benchmark rather than a replacement for existing risk-scoring systems, customer-service alerts or responsible gambling teams.
“We do indeed encourage operators to take up this tool, alongside their own,” the ANJ explained.
Identification has improved, but the benchmark has moved
The ANJ says operators have already made progress. “During the annual review of ‘Prevention of excessive or pathological gambling’ action plans, the ANJ observed improving results in online systems for identifying excessive or pathological gamblers,” it said. “This was reflected in the number of players identified being multiplied by three between 2024 and 2025, rising from 31,000 to 89,000 excessive players identified by operators.”
That growth is significant, and for many operators it reflects investment in behavioural analytics, safer gambling staff and better intervention workflows. Yet the regulator’s own model suggests the market still has further to go. In the second half of 2025, the algorithm identified 600,000 players with a strong probability of being excessive, equal to 8.7 per cent of account-based players. Within that group, around 300,000 were classed as manifestly excessive.
Excessive play accounts for 60 per cent of account-based GGR, ANJ says
The financial figures are also likely to focus boardroom attention. The ANJ estimates that excessive players generated €1.2bn in GGR across the account-based market covered by the algorithm, equal to 60 per cent of GGR in that specific scope, with that share increasing since 2023.
For operators, the practical challenge is not simply to detect more names, but to intervene proportionately. The ANJ guide recommends a graduated approach: general information for lower-risk cases, personalised messages and observation for moderate risk, and direct contact, including telephone calls, for the most serious cases. It also highlights tools such as deposit or loss limits, self-exclusion, removal from commercial communications, referral to support services and, in severe cases, voluntary gambling bans.
The guide also warns against relying only on “big player” lists, noting that high spenders are more likely to include excessive gamblers but are not automatically problem gamblers. It recommends combining financial data, time spent gambling, betting patterns, moderation-tool behaviour and customer-service interactions.
The illegal market challenge
However, while licensed operators are being asked to improve detection, intervention and follow-up, the French online gaming association AFJEL has warned that illegal gambling sites attracted 5.4 million French players in 2025, compared with 3.5 million on the regulated online market. The association also estimated illegal GGR at €2bn and reported that 62 per cent of players using illegal sites show excessive or pathological gambling behaviour.
That contrast is central to the policy challenge. In the licensed market, operators are expected to use tools such as risk scoring, deposit limits, self-exclusion, commercial opt-outs and referrals to support services. On illegal sites, those safeguards are largely absent, leaving players outside the protections that France’s regulatory framework is designed to provide.
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