The Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has published a guide for licensed operators on spotting player fraud and responding to it. The French regulator frames the document as a compliance aid and introduces no new rules.
Scope and legal basis
The guide covers any gambling offer that requires online player registration: sports betting, online lottery and network games tied to a player account. Activity running only through physical outlets with no online registration falls outside it. It sits alongside existing requirements, above all the rules of 9 September 2021 on countering fraud and money laundering. Operators keep their contractual freedom, and each case remains theirs to judge.
Article L. 320-4 of the Internal Security Code obliges operators to take part in fraud prevention. Companies applying for an online gaming and betting licence must show they can meet anti-fraud obligations, under the third paragraph of Article 18 of the law of 12 May 2010.
Five categories, and a higher bar
The ANJ sets out five categories of fraud: identity substitution, payment-method fraud, bank chargeback abuse, gaming fraud such as poker collusion and bet manipulation, and money dumping, meaning transfers between accounts dressed up as poker chip transfers. The list is not exhaustive.
Practices operators raised during consultation are listed separately: betting bots, betting syndicates, late bets and repeated opening and closing of accounts to collect bonuses. The regulator did not call them fraud and left the call to operators' contractual terms.
On evidence, the guide is blunt. A payout or a balance refund cannot be refused on suspicion alone. A player's silence when an operator asks questions strengthens suspicion but proves nothing. The document carries a review of case law on the standard of proof so operators know what courts expect. For confirmed cases it walks through the actions required by law and recommendations for the account and its balance, from hacked accounts to forged bank details. It closes with recommendations on penalty terms for players found to have committed fraud.
