Jake Pollard reports on a newly-launched algorithm designed by the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) to identify at risk and problem gamblers is going to increase the pressure on French operators to monitor and document the number of excessive or pathological gamblers among their client base.
The algorithm, the first of its kind in Europe, has identified 600,000 French players who are highly likely to be problem gamblers. But beyond those statistics gathered in H2 2025, the new data contrasts starkly with the current numbers for problem gamblers in France, which are estimated to have tripled between 2024 and 2025, but are still much lower, at 89,000.
No reasons were given for the discrepancy between the figures, but among the 600,000 players identified, 300,000 are “so obviously problem gamblers that their identification by operators is imperative”, said ANJ. It added that the upward trend since 2023 was likely due to overall market growth, but did “not explain the whole picture as the number of problem gamblers has risen faster than the total number of gamblers”.
Data divergence
The discrepancy is also “inconsistent with the size of the operators’ player base and prevalence studies”, added ANJ, and will increase the pressure on operators to raise their game when it comes to identifying at risk of problem gamblers. The French gambling regulator added that the 600,000 problem gamblers account for nearly 9% of the total population of registered players and generated €1.2bn in GGR, or 60% of the total online gambling GGR in France.
Since one of its key regulatory priorities is “to place the reduction of excessive or problem gambling at the heart of the regulation of the sector and its expectations of gambling operators”, ANJ is demanding that they implement the new algorithm “to comply with their compliance requirements and enable the regulator to objectively assess their efforts to identify problem gamblers and reduce the GGR generated by these players”.
The new tool will also enable ANJ to compare the number of problem gamblers reported by operators with the number detected by the algorithm. The regulator added that it “expects operators to identify those players who are clearly excessive (around 300,000), and to detect the entire population of excessive players as identified by the algorithm (around 600,000)”.
Under pressure
The algorithm can be used in tandem with operators’ own tools to identify excessive or problem gamblers and is not designed to measure the exact number of problem gamblers or to estimate the prevalence of problem gambling in the same way that general population surveys do.
However, operators will not relish the thought of potentially having to reveal much-higher-than-before volumes of GGR they generate from problem gamblers. With similar initiatives underway in Spain and the Netherlands, the ripple effect of ANJ’s new tool will also soon be felt by Dutch and Spanish operators.
Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, President of ANJ, said the launch of the algorithm was “a decisive step for the regulator” and demonstrated “its ability to develop an innovative and effective tool, designed to closely reflect the actual behaviour of online gamblers”.
She added that the algorithm will enable “the objective identification of problem gamblers, an effort that operators must pursue without delay” and should also be rolled out across the retail networks of PMU and FDJ United, “an objective we have been calling on the two monopolies to pursue since 2020”.
End game
ANJ can be confident that its data is accurate. It has total visibility of French operators’ data and information streams, which they continuously transmit to the regulator, and was the basis upon which it developed the algorithm from 2024, using 23 indicators or risk criteria to generate a single score for each player.
The indicators relate to: financial transactions, gaming moderators, gaming activity and frequency, as well as the player’s history; and divides players into four categories: recreational gambler, moderate-risk gambler, problem gambler and severe problem gambler and its performance was validated and measured against the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI), under the supervision of a scientific committee comprising recognised researchers.
The focus on identifying problem gamblers places further pressure on French operators, but is also consistent with ANJ’s aim of addressing the problem as much as it can and is in line with its objective of fighting the ‘banalisation’ of gambling or ensuring that sport is not identified with betting in the minds of French players and consumers.