French regulator forms new Sanctions Committee
The ANJ’s Sanctions Committee will begin work immediately with reviews of several operators.
France.- The French gambling regulator, l’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), has created a new independent Sanctions Committee to oversee disciplinary duties. The committee comprises six members representing the government, judiciary and legal systems.
The committee will work independently from the ANJ and deal with issuing sanctions “such as warnings, suspensions, penalties and criminal charges” against companies who are found to have broken French gambling law. It will have the power to order reviews into licensees’ key personnel and management.
State Council rapporteur public Frédéric Dieu has been named to chair the committee. State Council officer Dorothée Pradines will also represent government interests.
The legal system will be represented by the judges Nicolas Brunner and Maud Choquet from the French Court of Auditors, while two advisers from the Court of Cassation, Fabrice DelBano and Véronique Boisselet, will provide expertise on judiciary matters. All members will serve six-year tenures.
New Sanctions Committee to begin work immediately
The committee’s first action will be to review seven online gaming operators that the ANJ says have “passed the ceiling of 85 per cent of the maximum player return rate”. The maximum player return rate is reviewed every six months and includes bonus rewards.
The Sanctions Committee will also review two operators who allegedly “disregarded their obligations to identify and support people” who showed signs of excessive or pathological gambling. The maximum fine for French gaming licensees who breach rules is 5 per cent of turnover.
Earlier this month, the ANJ announced that it had updated its player self-assessment tool, Evalujeu. It’s updated the site’s branding and visual identity and added new features, including the ability to adapt the assessment to different types of gaming.
The gambling-harm evaluation tool was launched in 2015 and provides a 31-item questionnaire based on the Canadian Problem Gambling Index to help players assess their level of risk. It then proposes personalised advice and recommends options to manage gaming activity. Tools include deposit and betting limits, budget planners, game time limits and withdrawal thresholds.
French gambling revenue was up by 6.9 per cent for January to June thanks to the full opening of land-based venues, but online gambling revenue fell by 11.2 per cent.
