France Flags Heavy Reliance on High-Risk Online Gamblers
France’s gambling regulator has raised fresh concerns over how much online gambling revenue comes from players showing signs of harmful behavior.
According to the Autorité Nationale des Jeux, around 60% of France’s monitored online gambling revenue in the second half of 2025 came from players classified as excessive or high-risk. The regulator said its new risk-scoring model identified about 600,000 account-based players with a high probability of excessive gambling.
These players made up only 8.7% of the monitored player base but generated about €1.2 billion in gross gaming revenue. The findings add pressure on licensed operators, as they suggest that a relatively small group of vulnerable users may be driving a large share of market revenue.
ANJ stressed that the figures do not mean France has 600,000 clinically diagnosed gambling addicts. The tool is not a medical survey. Instead, it was created to help the regulator track risk across the market and assess whether operators are doing enough to identify and support vulnerable customers.
The model uses 23 indicators, including spending patterns, use of limits, playing frequency, session intensity, and account history. Players are then placed into four categories: recreational, moderate risk, excessive, or manifestly excessive.
Around 300,000 players fell into the most serious category in the second half of 2025. ANJ said these users should be treated as a priority for intervention.
The regulator also noted that operators flagged 89,000 excessive gamblers in 2025, up from 31,000 a year earlier, but still far below the level suggested by the new algorithm.
