France licensed casinos are a special case, because France does not licence online casinos at all. Under French law only online sports betting, horse race betting and poker are legal, all overseen by the ANJ, the Autorité Nationale des Jeux, which replaced ARJEL in 2020. Online slots, roulette, blackjack and other casino games are not permitted, so no traditional casino holds a genuine France license.
Below you will find what a France licence really covers, what protection you get as a player, and how to check an operator before you deposit. You can also compare every regime we cover in our casino licensing hub.
France drew its line in 2010 and has not moved it since. Betting, horse racing and poker were opened to competition because the state judged them games where skill or knowledge plays a part. Slots and table games were left out on the grounds that they are pure chance, and the physical casino sector lobbied hard to keep it that way. An amendment to legalise online casino was introduced late in 2024 and withdrawn within weeks after that sector pushed back.
So the honest position is that a French player using slots is playing on a foreign licence, usually Maltese, and the ANJ has those sites DNS blocked when it finds them. There is no French regulator to complain to about a casino game, because no French regulator authorises casino games. If you are in France and want to know who actually stands behind a site, start with Malta licensed casinos.
How do I recognise a France license?
A genuine France license only covers sports betting, horse racing and poker, and shows the ANJ logo linking to the official register of approved operators. There is no ANJ licence for online slots or table games, so any site offering those is licensed abroad, not by France. Because the ANJ publishes its list of approved operators and DNS blocks unlicensed sites, the key check is whether the operator appears on the ANJ list for betting and poker, or holds a strong foreign licence such as Malta for casino games.
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France runs a deliberately narrow online regime under the law of 12 May 2010, with the ANJ as regulator since 2020. The licence categories are limited, and casino games are simply not among them.
Everything else, including online slots and table games, sits outside the licensed market. A proposed amendment to legalise online casino was withdrawn in late 2024, so as of 2026 the situation is unchanged. That is why a casino with a France license, in the usual sense, does not exist, and why French players rely on foreign licensed sites instead.
You can confirm any betting or poker operator on the ANJ list of approved operators. For a lighter offshore regime to compare against, see our guide to casinos with a Curacao license.
For the products France does licence, betting and poker, ANJ operators are safe, tightly regulated and connected to national responsible gambling tools. For casino games, safety depends entirely on the foreign licence the site holds, since France offers none, so the quality of that licence is what matters most.
Handled this way, you can tell the difference between genuinely ANJ regulated betting and poker and the foreign licensed casinos around them. The casinos we list below have been tested by our team, with their actual licensing made clear.
For sports betting, horse racing and poker, a France license from the ANJ is safe and strictly regulated, with audits and national self exclusion tools. However, France does not licence online casino games at all, so any slots or table game site is licensed abroad rather than by France. For those, safety depends on the foreign regulator, such as the MGA, not on a French licence.
A real France licence covers only betting, horse racing and poker, and displays the ANJ logo linking to the official register of approved operators. Because there is no ANJ licence for online slots or table games, any casino offering those is licensed abroad. Checking the ANJ list is the quickest way to see what a site is genuinely approved for.
Online casino games are not legal to offer in France, so French players who want slots or table games use sites licensed abroad, typically in Malta, Gibraltar or Curacao, in a legal grey area. Players themselves are generally not prosecuted, but the ANJ treats these sites as illegal offer and DNS blocks many of them, and there is no French recourse if a dispute arises.
It has been debated. An amendment to legalise and regulate online casinos was proposed but withdrawn in late 2024, and the ANJ has estimated the potential market at hundreds of millions of euros. As of 2026, however, online casino games remain unregulated and effectively prohibited in France, so nothing has changed for players yet.
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