France’s gambling watchdog, the French National Gaming Authority (ANJ), has hit an anonymous operator with a €75,000 ($87,679.88) fine. The operator had failed to meet its obligations in regards to legal data archiving and availability.
Between 2022 and 2024, the company failed to provide real-time data that the French authority uses to monitor things like problem gambling. It’s also used in key areas of maintaining observations on operators’ activities, but the anonymous culprit had failed to ensure that this data was delivered to the ANJ.
According to the report, over 900,000 entries were either broken or inaccurate. A bigger and much more concerning fault is that it never catalogued millions worth of bets, resulting in a huge gap in data tracking.
ANJ fined operator hits back
The situation led to the company being sanctioned in September 2024. However, in November, the operator responded to the grievances filed by the ANJ. The operator argued that the ANJ had not taken into account the “technical requirements” needed to meet its standards.
Part of this reasoning is down to what the operator claims are “successive decisions” that caused a pile-on effect. It states that these weren’t “simple adjustments” to make, and says that the ANJ has not explained its “failures to its service providers.”
Another wrinkle is that the operator, in March 2025, now claims that they weren’t privy to the “ongoing administrative investigation” and has requested a lawyer.
The ANJ’s decision, however, mostly stems from the operator’s blocking of its tracking. There’s a large concern within the gambling world that money laundering and other nefarious activities could take place through the malicious use of these gambling outlets.
According to a 2023 survey, it found that more than half of adults between 18-75 gambled in some capacity. It also found that this had grown since 2019 by 4.6%. The data also showed that around 5% of people were classified as problem gamblers, something the ANJ is trying to curb.
