France

Decree No. 2026-60 of 4 February 2026 activated the JONUM experimental trial framework for games involving monetisable digital objects, entering into force on 7 February 2026 and supervised by ANJ. JONUM operates via declaration rather than authorisation, a distinct and lighter-touch route compared with the standard ANJ gambling licensing regime, and is structurally excluded from the gambling test because JONUM winnings cannot be paid out in legal tender. This corroborated finding (ANJ primary source plus National Law Review, Pinsent Masons and Esports Insider secondary commentary) is confirmed as to the decree's existence and effective date, while the declaration-route characterisation itself carries probable rather than confirmed confidence, and the instrument overall carries mixed durability as an experimental trial decree rather than primary legislation. Standard licensing for existing verticals is otherwise unchanged this cycle.

The standard online sports-betting entry pathway remains functional, evidenced by ANJ's approval of a five-year licence for Hillside (New Media Malta) PLC (Bet365) under Decision No. 2026-114, effective 16 April 2026. JONUM additionally opens an experimental entry pathway for Web3/NFT operators outside the standard licensing track: a three-year framework permitting monetisable-digital-object games to operate under ANJ supervision, subject to player-protection and anti-money-laundering standards, without requiring a full standard gambling licence.

The National Assembly adopted, on 29 June 2026, a bill empowering ANJ to cap gambling losses, deposits and stakes for players aged 18 to 25, with the provision targeted for entry into force on 1 January 2027. This would materially expand ANJ's player-protection toolkit with a new age-banded affordability control layered onto the existing framework. The finding carries only uncertain confidence this cycle, resting on a single Tier 4 trade-press source, with the underlying Assemblée Nationale legislative text not independently retrieved; primary confirmation would be needed to upgrade this to probable or confirmed.

ANJ reaffirmed on 25 February 2026, via primary-source confirmed statement, its classification of prediction-market platforms as illegal unauthorised gambling in France, continuing an active enforcement posture against unlicensed adjacent products. This sits alongside ANJ's supportive posture toward the JONUM experimental framework's own activation, indicating a bifurcated regulatory strategy rather than a uniform liberalising or tightening trend: openness toward declared, statute-compliant innovation paired with continued vigilance against undeclared or mischaracterised products.

Separately, and at lower confidence given single-source Tier 4 sourcing, ANJ's conditional approval of FDJ United's 2026 games and betting programme, requiring withdrawal or modification of high-risk scratch-card products and refusing an online Amigo launch, shows continued product-level constraint even of the former monopoly operator. No formal licence-revocation events were present in this cycle's evidence.

ANJ's 24 February 2026 formal warning classifies prediction markets, including cross-border, offshore-facing platforms of the Polymarket type, as illegal unauthorised gambling. This extends ANJ's enforcement theory to a genuinely new product category involving platforms that do not fit the traditional sports-betting or casino licensing frame.

Two distinct AML developments define this cycle. First, ANJ formally reminded French banks and fintechs that facilitating deposits to unlicensed gambling platforms, including offshore prediction-market services, breaches their own anti-money-laundering obligations. This creates a secondary enforcement channel that reaches payment intermediaries directly, rather than relying solely on action against the unlicensed platforms themselves, and follows ANJ's declaration that prediction-market platforms such as Polymarket constitute illegal unauthorised gambling.

The EUR75,000 sanction imposed by ANJ this cycle concerned an operator's failure to transmit player-activity and return-rate data required for ANJ's ongoing monitoring of return rates and detection of pathological gambling. This is a probable-confidence, source-tier T2 finding and it indicates that data-archiving and reporting infrastructure is an active technical-compliance enforcement focus for ANJ, not a passive administrative requirement.

The EUR75,000 enforcement action this cycle underscores the standing obligation on operators to transmit player-activity and return-rate data to ANJ for monitoring purposes tied to detecting pathological gambling. No new obligation was introduced this cycle, but the active enforcement of this existing data-transmission requirement is a notable signal of ANJ's compliance-monitoring priorities.

Licensed operators declared roughly €785 million in combined 2026 promotional budgets, a 25 percent increase year-on-year, ahead of anticipated exposure surges around the 2026 FIFA World Cup. ANJ has ordered strict adherence to these declared figures and attached inspection risk to any mid-year reallocation, a materially higher compliance burden than the prior advisory-only posture around advertising spend.

FDJ, as the largest domestic operator, faced specific directives: it was ordered to modify or withdraw excessive-play scratch games, had a proposed online Amigo launch refused, and remains subject to an existing draw-game freeze. These developments add a distinct promotional-compliance cost dimension to the French cost-to-operate picture, layered on top of existing licensing fees and player-protection obligations, and signal that ANJ intends to treat advertising-budget commitments as enforceable rather than aspirational going into the World Cup period.

The JONUM decree imposes specific monetary caps on reward flows: in-kind winnings are capped at €1,000 per calendar year per player per game, and crypto-asset prize pools are capped at 20 percent of a game's annual revenue, subject to a €25,000 per-player annual ceiling. These caps bound the gambling-adjacent monetisation exposure of monetisable digital objects and function as a payment-flow control layered onto the regime's lighter declaration-based licensing bar.

Separately, ANJ's declaration that prediction-market platforms constitute illegal unauthorised gambling has been paired with a formal reminder to French banks and fintechs that facilitating deposits to such unlicensed platforms breaches their AML obligations, creating a secondary payment-channel enforcement risk for any payment service provider processing transactions connected to unlicensed gambling activity, whether crypto-based or fiat.

France's competitive landscape is shaped by the closed-licensing model and the dominant positions of FDJ and PMU in their respective exclusive-rights verticals. FDJ publicly acknowledged a very significant slowdown in lotteries and draw-based games at its latest general assembly — a probable market-performance statement that coincides with the most constraining programme conditions ANJ has imposed on FDJ to date, including a scratchcard cap and a rejected Amigo expansion request.

Two forward-looking reforms are tracked this cycle. First, the 18-25 age-banded loss, deposit and stake limit provision adopted by the National Assembly on 29 June 2026, targeted for 1 January 2027. Second, ANJ's proposed whistle-to-whistle gambling advertising ban during sports broadcasts, targeted for introduction ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Both rest on single Tier 4 trade-press sources at uncertain confidence, the former at bill-adopted stage and the latter still at proposal stage, and both point toward a tightening player-protection and marketing-restriction trajectory rather than liberalisation. Primary Assemblée Nationale or ANJ documentation would upgrade confidence on either item.