ANJ issues new player-fraud guidance for licensed gambling operators in France

France’s Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has published guidance that expands its player-fraud typology and puts evidence gathering front and center. For operators, the practical point is simple: if you want to treat activity as fraud, you need to be able to prove it before you start moving balances around.

1. The guide is aimed at licensed gambling operators in France and covers products involving online player registration, including online betting and gaming, lottery products, and retail networks that require a player account. ANJ says it is a practical framework, not a new legal regime, and “does not create new obligations.”
2. ANJ says operators already have a statutory duty to contribute to the prevention of fraudulent activities. The guide is meant to support compliance with existing rules and answer recurring operator questions about how to deal with fraud committed by players, especially when the fraud allegation affects the handling of player accounts and balances.
3. The biggest operational change is the more detailed fraud map. ANJ identifies five main categories of player fraud: identity fraud, payment method fraud, abusive chargeback claims, gambling-related fraud, and “money dumping,” which the regulator describes as value transfer between accounts through gaming activity.
4. The regulator is explicit about the evidential bar: operators must collect sufficient proof before labeling an incident as fraud. The guide also includes a review of case law, which should be the part compliance teams actually read, because it points to the standard courts are likely to expect if a dispute ends up in litigation.
5. ANJ also draws a line around conduct that is not covered by its fraud definition, including certain betting bots, coordinated betting, late betting, and wagering based on obvious pricing errors. Those behaviors may still be handled under contractual terms, but the regulator treats them separately from the fraud categories in the guide.

For PSPs, acquirers, and risk teams working with French operators, the useful takeaway is that ANJ is narrowing the operational question to evidence, classification, and response. In other words: if the merchant wants to freeze, reverse, or reassign funds after a suspicious event, the documentation needs to be there first.