Legislation
France – L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux given new power to block illegal sites administratively
By Phil - 21 March 2022
French gaming regulator L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux has been given new powers with a law replacing the current legal procedure for blocking illegal gambling sites with an administrative blocking procedure.
The President of the National Gaming Authority can now, under the supervision of the administrative judge, order Internet service providers to block access to sites that offer an illegal offer of gambling and sites that advertise it. Such a procedure, which already exists in many countries of the European Union, will enable ANJ to prevent, more quickly and efficiently, access to sites that present very high risks in terms of addiction, reliability of gambling operations and money laundering.
This legislative development is a major step forward in the fight against the illegal supply of gambling in France, which the ANJ has set as a priority project for 2022. It supports the new cooperation strategy that it has been developing for a few months with all digital players (search engines, social networks, content exchange platforms, payment solution providers) in order to make them accountable and stem the proliferation of illegal offers.
In addition, as an extension of the mission of monitoring gambling operations conferred on it by Law No. 2010-476 of 12 May 2010 on the opening to competition and regulation of the online gambling sector, the parliamentarians wished to enshrine the essential role played by the Authority within the platform against the manipulation of sports competitions. This one, operational since 2016 is now enshrined in law.
Within this platform, it is now up to L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux to centralise and analyse reports relating to atypical or suspicious bets taken on sports competitions organised or open to betting on French territory with a view, if necessary, to forwarding them to the judicial authority. To this end, the law establishes a secure framework to promote the exchange of information within the French platform, but also with other national platforms of the Council of Europe, international sports organisations and transnational police agencies.
The composition and operation of the platform will soon be defined in a decree in the Council of State. The conditions for the exchange of information will also be specified in this decree, after consulting the CNIL.
Finally, the law now provides that the decisions of prohibition of betting taken by the President of L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux enter into force immediately after their publication. Until then, those decisions had been subject to the ordinary law on administrative decisions, which provides for the entry into force of the decision the day following the day of its publication. In the event of serious and consistent indications of manipulation weighing on a sporting event, this new article gives the ANJ the necessary reactivity to neutralize suspicious bets before the start of the match.
