France’s national gambling regulator, the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), has issued practical guidance for licensed online gambling operators on detecting, documenting and responding to player fraud, publishing the document on Monday following consultation with operators and the gambling ombudsman. The measure does not create legislation or introduce additional formal legal duties, but it clarifies how the regulator expects existing anti-fraud, anti-money laundering and player-account controls to be applied in the French regulated market.
The guidance addresses operational decisions that can expose operators to disputes with customers, including account closures, the freezing or return of balances, cancellation of bets and the redistribution of poker tournament winnings. By setting out examples of evidence accepted in French litigation, the ANJ has sought to reduce uncertainty around when gambling businesses may intervene against suspected fraud while remaining able to justify their actions before a court.
The document covers six types of fraud that the regulator identifies as recurrent risks in online gambling. These include identity fraud, payment fraud, abusive chargebacks, account-related cheating, money dumping and the manipulation of sporting events. The ANJ’s approach reflects the differing commercial and consumer-protection issues raised by each category, rather than treating fraud as a single compliance matter.
Identity fraud remains a central concern because French online gambling licences require operators to verify customers and ensure that gambling accounts are used by the person in whose name they were opened. The regulator said operators should close an account where identity fraud has been established. It also indicated that funds may need to be reserved where the ownership of the bank account linked to a customer profile cannot be confirmed.
The distinction between suspicion and proof is likely to be important for operators. Closing an account or withholding funds can create contractual and legal risks if a business cannot demonstrate why it acted. The guidance therefore places emphasis on the underlying records that support an intervention, rather than on automated flags alone.
For payment-related fraud, including disputed transactions and chargeback abuse, operators must balance the prevention of financial crime with their obligations to customers whose payment details may have been used without authorisation. Chargebacks can result from genuine misuse of a payment instrument, but can also be deployed by customers seeking to reverse gambling-related transactions after placing bets or withdrawing funds. The ANJ’s guidance makes clear that operators should retain sufficient evidence to distinguish between these circumstances.
Account takeovers are also addressed through a technical-security lens. The ANJ highlighted measures such as two-factor authentication when customers seek to withdraw funds or amend banking details. Such controls are increasingly relevant as fraudsters target established accounts that have already passed initial verification checks and may contain a transaction history that appears legitimate.
Although authentication tools can increase friction for customers, the regulator’s position signals that operators will be expected to give particular scrutiny to account changes that could facilitate the diversion of player funds. This may require gambling companies to review when step-up verification is triggered, how suspicious changes are escalated and whether customer-service teams have sufficient procedures for handling disputed access to an account.
The guidance also considers cheating in online games, particularly poker. Collusion between players and the use of automated software can undermine the fairness of a game and affect the distribution of winnings. In these cases, the ANJ said operators should ensure that their contractual terms permit the cancellation or redistribution of winnings judged to have been obtained illegitimately.
According to the regulator, French courts have upheld corrective action in relevant cases when operators could support their conclusions with reliable data. This is significant for poker platforms, where an action against suspected collusion can involve multiple accounts, tournament results and players who may not have been directly involved in the conduct under review. Operators may need to demonstrate not only that prohibited behaviour occurred but also how they calculated the impact on other participants.
The document refers to evidentiary “converging indicators”, a concept used in French legal proceedings where several consistent elements can collectively establish a case. Examples cited by the ANJ include IP address information, device data and the timing of account connections. These records may help show links between customer accounts, unusual patterns of access or coordinated activity that would be difficult to explain through ordinary play.
The regulator did not suggest that a single data point should automatically lead to punitive action. Shared internet connections, device changes and unusual betting activity can have legitimate explanations. The guidance instead reinforces the need for operators to assess evidence in context and to maintain an auditable record of their decision-making. That requirement is likely to be relevant when customers challenge account restrictions, disputed balances or the voiding of bets.
For licensed businesses, the immediate impact is expected to fall on compliance, payments, fraud, security and customer-operations teams. Many operators already deploy identity verification, transaction monitoring and game-integrity systems. However, the ANJ’s publication gives those controls a more defined regulatory benchmark, particularly in relation to the quality of records supporting enforcement decisions against individual customers.
Operators are encouraged to review their know-your-customer processes, fraud-detection arrangements and terms and conditions in light of the guidance. Contractual provisions will be especially important where an operator wishes to reserve funds, cancel transactions or redistribute winnings. Terms that are unclear, inconsistently applied or unsupported by a documented investigation may be more vulnerable to challenge.
The guidance may also affect technical certification and internal governance. Operators will need to consider whether their systems capture the required data, how long those records are retained and whether they can be retrieved in a form usable during a dispute or regulatory inspection. Fraud-management tools that produce alerts without preserving the basis for those alerts could be insufficient under the approach described by the ANJ.
The practical burden may be more acute for smaller licensees and suppliers with limited compliance resources. Advanced device analysis, behavioural monitoring and strong authentication can be costly to implement and may require coordination with payment providers, identity-verification vendors and platform partners. A more detailed regulatory expectation does not necessarily mean that every operator must adopt identical technology, but it increases pressure to show that safeguards are proportionate to the risks faced.
There is also a commercial consideration. Excessively aggressive fraud controls can lead to false positives, delayed withdrawals and disputes with legitimate customers. Such outcomes can damage consumer confidence in regulated gambling services, particularly if account actions are poorly explained. The ANJ’s focus on proof rather than suspicion provides a degree of protection against arbitrary decisions, but it also requires operators to invest in investigations before taking irreversible action.
The French framework separates regulated online gambling from unlicensed offerings and places substantial compliance obligations on authorised operators. Licence holders must operate within rules intended to protect players, preserve sports integrity and prevent the use of gambling services for financial crime. Fraud controls form part of this broader supervisory structure because failures can affect both individual customers and confidence in the regulated market.
The publication comes as player protection remains a prominent enforcement priority for the ANJ. In July, the regulator imposed a €500,000 penalty on an unnamed online betting business referred to as Company X for deficiencies in identifying and supporting customers showing signs of problematic gambling. The sanction followed an investigation in which the ANJ found that 29 higher-risk players had not been assigned an appropriate risk level.
The regulator said six of those customers had not been identified at all, while 23 had been placed in a lower risk category than warranted. That case concerned responsible-gambling controls rather than player fraud, but it demonstrates that the ANJ is prepared to examine how operators translate formal obligations into day-to-day monitoring and intervention processes.
Earlier in 2026, the authority also ran a public-awareness campaign around gambling-harm risks connected with increased betting activity during the World Cup. The campaign and the July enforcement action indicate that the regulator’s scrutiny is not confined to financial crime or game integrity. For operators, controls concerning fraud, customer protection and anti-money laundering are increasingly likely to be considered together as part of a wider assessment of governance and risk management.
The latest guidance does not alter the statutory basis for enforcement, and it should not be read as creating an automatic right for operators to confiscate funds whenever unusual activity is identified. Its significance lies in its practical interpretation of existing duties and in the examples it offers of actions that may be defensible if appropriately evidenced. Customers retain the ability to contest decisions, while operators remain responsible for ensuring that their measures are lawful, proportionate and consistent with their published terms.
Market participants will now assess the document against existing policies, technical controls and contractual language. The ANJ has not announced a separate implementation deadline, but licensed operators are expected to incorporate the guidance into their compliance reviews and prepare to demonstrate its application during future inspections, disputes or enforcement proceedings.
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