ANJ Problem Gambling Tool Finds 600,000 High-Risk Players

France’s gambling regulator has deployed a new detection algorithm, and the results have put the scale of ANJ problem gambling concerns into sharp focus. The tool identified around 600,000 online players with a high probability of excessive gambling during the second half of 2025 — a figure that has raised serious questions about how dependent the licensed market has become on its most vulnerable players.

A Detection Tool Unlike Anything Else in Europe

The Autorité Nationale des Jeux, known as the ANJ, is France’s national gambling authority. It oversees the country’s licensed online gambling market, which includes major operators such as FDJ United and Pari-Mutuel Urbain. The new algorithm is the first of its kind to be deployed by a European regulator.

Its purpose is straightforward: identify players who show behavioral patterns consistent with excessive or pathological gambling, and do so at scale. Previous detection efforts had flagged around 89,000 players. The new tool identified more than six times that number in a single six-month window.

That leap in detection is significant on its own. But the revenue data attached to those 600,000 players is what makes the findings genuinely alarming.

8.7% of Players, 60% of Revenue

The 600,000 players flagged by the algorithm represent 8.7% of the total online account-based gambling population across France’s licensed operators. Together, they generated €1.2 billion in gross gaming revenue during the second half of 2025. That figure accounts for 60% of all online gambling GGR in France over the same period.

The ANJ described this concentration as “concerning.” A small fraction of the player base, largely made up of people the regulator has now classified as high-risk, is generating the majority of the industry’s online revenue. That dynamic puts operators in a difficult position: the commercial model is partly built on the activity of the players most in need of protection.

The regulator also flagged what it called a dual upward trend. The number of people experiencing problem gambling is growing, and so is their share of total operator revenue. Both directions are moving the wrong way.

Half the Flagged Players Are Classified as Manifestly Excessive

Of the 600,000 players identified, the ANJ classified approximately 300,000 as “manifestly excessive” gamblers. These are players whose behavior is so clearly problematic, the regulator says, that identification by operators should be considered mandatory, not a matter of internal discretion.

That language matters. It shifts the conversation from voluntary harm prevention practices to regulatory obligation. Operators cannot credibly claim they were unaware of these players if the regulator’s own tool has already pinpointed them.

Operators Face Increased Scrutiny

The ANJ has made clear that it expects operators to implement the new algorithm. This is not a research exercise. The tool is a regulatory instrument, and the expectation is that licensed platforms will use it to monitor their customer bases, detect at-risk behavior earlier, and document findings at a level that can withstand regulatory review.

French operators will face greater pressure to demonstrate that they are actively identifying excessive gambling among their registered players and taking appropriate steps. The days of passive compliance — ticking boxes without engaging meaningfully with player harm data — look increasingly difficult to sustain.

What This Means for the French Market

The ANJ’s findings arrive at a critical moment for online gambling regulation across Europe. Several markets are tightening their approach to player protection, but few have produced data this stark. A regulator identifying 600,000 at-risk players, and connecting them directly to 60% of industry revenue, is a different kind of signal.

It makes the ANJ problem gambling framework one of the most data-driven in Europe and sets a precedent that other regulators may look to replicate. The question now is whether operators respond with genuine structural change, or whether the pressure has to intensify further before behavior shifts at scale.