France’s new gambling regulator L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has officially taken over from ARJEL with a significantly expanded regulatory scope and enhanced powers.
ANJ was established last year under amended gambling legislation to enable the regulator to supervise all segments of the French gambling market, assuming responsibility for online gambling from ARJEL.
“The ANJ is not an enlarged ARJEL, it is a new project that requires rethinking regulation,” said ANJ chairwoman Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin. “It has to adapt its intervention to monopolies (FDJ and PMU) and to players gambling mostly anonymously in points of sale. I would like to set up a regulation that combines support and control in order to better serve and protect players.”
At its first meeting Monday, the ANJ set out its objectives, which include the prevention of excessive or pathological gambling and protecting minors; ensuring the integrity, reliability and transparency of gaming; preventing fraudulent and criminal activities, as well as money laundering and financing of terrorism; and ensuring the balanced, fair development of various types of games, in order to avoid any economic destabilisation.
The ANJ is currently finalising two reference frameworks, one on the prevention of gambling addiction and the protection of minors, and the other on the fight against fraud, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
These new compliance tools will be submitted for consultation to various stakeholders in order to develop industry standards for implementation.
In addition, the country’s self-exclusion programme will be transferred from the Ministry of Home Affairs to ANJ from September, with the regulator expected to propose a new registration process and improved player protections tools following the transfer.