The French government has introduced new gambling regulations, including the creation of a new gambling authority the National Gambling Authority (L’autorité nationale des jeux – ANJ), before the planned privatisation of state-owned gaming and lottery operator FDJ.
The new authority will be composed of nine members who will be appointed for a term of six years, with the French president appointing the president of the new regulatory authority. The French Assembly and Senate leaders will each appoint one member, male and female, with a further six members appointed by decree, three men and three women.
FDJ is currently owned and operated by the French government, but its shares will be sold to institutional and private investors in an initial public offering later this year from the current shareholding of 72 percent to around 20 percent. However, the Council of Ministers said the state will continue to hold a certain degree of influence over the company.
“The National Gambling Authority (ANJ) will become the main player in the regulation of gambling in France,” the country’s Council of Ministers said. “This new independent administrative authority will be endowed with reinforced powers, over a broad scope of competences.
“In the competitive online sports betting sector, the ANJ will take over the mission of issuing the licenses to online gambling or betting operators, now exercised by ARJEL. It will see its powers of supervision strengthened: the authority will indeed be able to prescribe to an operator the withdrawal of any commercial communication inciting to play excessively.
“On the casino sector: the skills of the ANJ will focus on the fight against excessive gambling. The regulation of this activity for its other aspects, however, will continue to be the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior, because of its specificities.”
The new regulations give FDJ the exclusivity in operating lottery games in France, both in physical networks and online, as well as retail sports betting. FDJ will as well authorized to offer random number generator (RNG) games, something the country’s land-based casino and gaming industry had opposed.
The new rules also prohibit any operator other than FDJ from exploiting the results of lottery games without the prior authorization of FDJ, a move designed to combat lottery betting providers.
Exclusivity rights for the lottery games and sports betting cover a 25-year period and are subject to payment by FDJ to the state by June 30th, 2020, although the price for the exclusive rights is yet to be decided.
The new regulations will come into force on January 1st, 2020.
