New French regulator reveals leadership team

The new Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has announced several leadership appointments.

France.- The new unified gaming regulator, L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux  (ANJ), has announced several new appointments to its senior leadership team.

The new body which unites French gaming under one single regulator was launched last month to take on responsibilities previously split between ARJEL, the French Treasury and the Department of Agriculture. 

It is being led by the former President of the French Data Protection Authority, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin. She has brought in former colleague Olivier Tournut, Chief Administrator at the data protection agency, as Secretary General responsible for the regulator’s day-to-day operations.

Former Treasury Counsellor Rémi Lataste takes up the position of Director-General overseeing the agency’s budget, while former ARJEL Executive Jean Baptiste Menguy will come over as HR Director of the new agency. Also coming from ARJEL, Imman Toufik will become Director of Public Affairs.

The ANJ has been set priorities of developing new frameworks to prioritise consumer protection and the prevention of financial crime. It has insisted that it will not merely be an enlargement of the former ARJEL.

The appointments come as France’s Observatoire des jeux (ODJ) has reported that cases of problem gambling are growing in France despite an overall drop in gambling.

An ODJ survey of 10,000 people found that 47.2 per cent gambled at least once in the past year, down from 57.2 per cent in the last survey in 2014. In the same period problem gambling doubled from 0.8 per cent to 1.6 per cent.