🇫🇷 France gambling license check

Partially regulated   Last verified

Flat illustration of the Eiffel Tower and Paris rooftops with the France outline

France licenses only some forms of online gambling through Autorité nationale des jeux, and every approved ANJ operator can be confirmed in the authority's public list. No online casino is licensed in France, and ANJ states that every online casino site is illegal there.

Regulator
Autorité nationale des jeux · ANJ
Official register
Public licensee register
Machine readable
No, manual search only
Regime
Partially regulated
Search the official ANJ register

How to verify a France license

  1. Open the ANJ list of approved operators on anj.fr
  2. Find the exact address of the site among the listed websites, every one of which ends in .fr
  3. Check that the company named on the site matches the approved operator
  4. Check that the operator's categories cover the bet you want to place, sports betting, horse race betting or poker
  5. If the site offers slots, roulette or other casino games online, stop, because no such site can hold a French licence
  6. Search the domain in the ANJ black list of blocked sites, keeping in mind that ANJ says the list is not exhaustive

License types in France

France licenses only three kinds of online gambling, sports betting, horse race betting and poker. Online casino games, slot machines included, are prohibited, and no licence can be granted for them. An operator needs one approval from ANJ for each category, issued for five years, renewable and not transferable, and the operator must be established in the European Union. The lottery is a monopoly of La Française des Jeux, and casino games are legal only in the 202 land-based casinos and eight gaming clubs in Paris.

  • Online sports betting, in mutual or fixed-odds form
  • Online horse race betting, in mutual form only
  • Online poker, which French law calls circle games

Key facts about the ANJ regime

  • No online casino is licensed in France, and ANJ states that every online casino site is illegal there
  • ANJ states that an international online casino licence has no legal value in France
  • French law treats a game as gambling only when four conditions meet, an offer to the public, a hope of winning, a win that depends at least partly on chance, and a payment required from the player
  • A free casino game that asks for no payment misses the fourth condition. Partouche, a land-based casino group, runs such a free platform at online.partouche.com, where players use virtual coins that cannot be bought and can win game credits to collect at a Partouche casino
  • Since 7 February 2026 ANJ supervises a trial for JONUM, games with monetisable digital objects, where players pay and may win digital items such as NFTs or tokens, but never euros
  • On 14 October 2026 ANJ listed four declared JONUM offers, Sorare, Sorare Pro, CyLimit and MFL
  • On 13 October 2026 the ANJ list named 16 approved operators on 22 websites, all ending in .fr
  • The ANJ black list read on 13 October 2026 held 2,776 blocked domains, with blocking decisions dated from 13 June 2022 to 16 July 2026
  • Since March 2022 ANJ can order internet providers to block an illegal gambling site and search engines to delist it, once a five-day formal notice to its publisher and host has gone unanswered
  • The return to players on online sports betting is capped at 85 percent
  • The ANJ sanctions committee can fine an operator up to 5 percent of its turnover

What the license means for players

Online gambling in France is closed to anyone under 18, and approved operators verify each player's identity, age and address and the payment account that winnings are paid to. Before the first deposit and the first stake, the site asks the player to set a deposit limit and a stake limit, each counted over seven rolling days, and poker sites also ask for a limit on playing time. A player can exclude themselves from one operator for 24 hours to 12 months, or ask ANJ for a voluntary gambling ban that covers every approved site, FDJ and PMU player accounts and land-based casinos for at least three years. More than 85,000 people were on the ban list in November 2025.

Red flags and fake ANJ claims

  • The site offers online casino games such as slots, which no operator can be licensed for in France
  • The domain is not on the ANJ list of approved operators
  • The site does not use a .fr address, while every site on the ANJ list does
  • The site shows an approved operator logo but is missing from the ANJ list, which ANJ calls fraudulent use of the logo
  • The site relies on an international casino licence, which ANJ says has no legal value in France
  • The site never asks you to confirm or prove that you are an adult
  • The domain appears on the ANJ black list of blocked sites

Legal status and tax

Online gambling in France was opened to licensed competition by Law 2010-476 of 12 May 2010, which created the online gaming regulator ARJEL. Ordinance 2019-1015 of 2 October 2019 turned it into the Autorité nationale des jeux, an independent administrative authority in place since June 2020 that regulates every authorised form of gambling, from the FDJ lottery and the PMU to the approved online operators. Any online gambling offer that ANJ has not approved is illegal. Since the law to democratise sport of March 2022, ANJ orders the blocking of illegal sites itself, where a court decision used to take four to six months. Land-based casinos stay under the Ministry of the Interior for the integrity of games and the fight against fraud and money laundering.

Since the PACTE law, most gambling categories in France are taxed on gross gaming revenue instead of on stakes. In 2025 online sports betting took 11.5 billion euros of stakes for 1.7 billion euros of gross gaming revenue, online horse race betting took 1.7 billion euros of stakes for 326 million euros, and online poker produced 525 million euros of gross gaming revenue.

Frequently asked questions

Who regulates online gambling in France?

Autorité nationale des jeux, usually shortened to ANJ, oversees gambling in France. France licenses only three kinds of online gambling, sports betting, horse race betting and poker. Online casino games, slot machines included, are prohibited, and no licence can be granted for them. An operator needs one approval from ANJ for each category, issued for five years, renewable and not transferable, and the operator must be established in the European Union. The lottery is a monopoly of La Française des Jeux, and casino games are legal only in the 202 land-based casinos and eight gaming clubs in Paris.

How do I check if a casino holds a France license?

No online casino is licensed in France, and ANJ states that every online casino site is illegal there. Open the official register on anj.fr and search for the operator. The ANJ list of approved operators is a short web page with one entry per company, showing the company name, its websites and the categories it may offer, which can only be sports betting, horse race betting and poker. On 13 October 2026 it listed 16 operators on 22 websites, every one ending in .fr. It shows no licence numbers and no dates. No online casino can be licensed in France, so none appears on the list. ANJ also publishes a downloadable black list of sites blocked by its administrative orders and states that this list is not exhaustive. A real licensee appears there under its own name.

What does a ANJ license mean for players?

Online gambling in France is closed to anyone under 18, and approved operators verify each player's identity, age and address and the payment account that winnings are paid to. Before the first deposit and the first stake, the site asks the player to set a deposit limit and a stake limit, each counted over seven rolling days, and poker sites also ask for a limit on playing time. A player can exclude themselves from one operator for 24 hours to 12 months, or ask ANJ for a voluntary gambling ban that covers every approved site, FDJ and PMU player accounts and land-based casinos for at least three years. More than 85,000 people were on the ban list in November 2025.

How do I spot a fake France license claim?

The site offers online casino games such as slots, which no operator can be licensed for in France The domain is not on the ANJ list of approved operators The site does not use a .fr address, while every site on the ANJ list does The site shows an approved operator logo but is missing from the ANJ list, which ANJ calls fraudulent use of the logo The site relies on an international casino licence, which ANJ says has no legal value in France The site never asks you to confirm or prove that you are an adult The domain appears on the ANJ black list of blocked sites

Sources

Not sure how registers work in general? Read our guide to checking if an online casino is licensed or browse every jurisdiction we cover.