Licensing and regulation: Can we get a licence?

Decree-Law No. 74-20 of 24 October 1974, on fairground installations, parlour games and lotteries, approved by Law No. 96 of the same year, is the sole governing instrument and remains in force unchanged. It criminalises games of chance and lottery schemes generally, carving out only a narrow exemption for land-based casinos restricted to foreign tourists under a tightly controlled regime. No licensing framework exists for online betting or online casino. Draft law 09/2026, filed by twenty-three deputies on 19 January 2026 and referred to the Commission de la legislation generale on 29 January 2026, would redefine jeux de hasard to explicitly capture physical and digital chance-based financial gain, impose a default prohibition subject to narrow exceptions, and add a chapter criminalising electronic and digital money games. The bill has not been enacted and remains at committee stage.