ANJ demands stronger action on excessive underage gambling
French National Gaming Authority announces two key priorities for operators’ 2022 action plans
France’s national gambling regulator, Autorité Nationale Des Jeux (ANJ), has announced that licensed online gambling operators in the country must increase their efforts to prevent excessive and underage gambling following a review of their 2021 action plans.
After new regulations were introduced in 2019, the ANJ now requires all online gambling operators wishing to offer their services to French players to submit an action plan each year outlining how they will promote responsible gambling and tackle excessive and underage gambling.
However, having now analysed the progress that has been made since operators submitted their 2021 action plans, the ANJ believes there is still significant room for improvement on both fronts and has outlined a number of concrete actions that it expects to see included in this year’s proposals.
In terms of the protection of pathological or excessive gamblers, the ANJ expects operators to adopt their standard definition of gambling addiction and set up or consolidate methods to identify problem gambling as early as possible. It will also require “customer knowledge” tools to be provided to players that enable them to monitor their behaviour and reference it against a national standard.
Measures that the ANJ expects to see introduced to prevent juvenile gambling, meanwhile, will include strengthening identity checks on players, generalising the provision of parental control software and restricting minors’ access to operators’ websites and social media accounts. It will also expect operators to adopt a standardised logo that highlights the prevention of underage gambling.
In order to monitor the effectiveness of their 2022 action plans, operators will also be required to send the ANJ a scoreboard tracing the implementation of their objectives and evaluating their success.
Problem gambling remains a major issue in France, with The Games Observatory estimating in 2020 that almost 1.4 million players were at risk, including 400,000 at a pathological level. Moreover, according to the latest EnClass study of addictive tendencies in the country, one in four third grade college students reported playing a game of chance for money in 2021 despite it being legally prohibited.