France's ANJ Warns All Licensees on Asset Freezing After a Sanctions Case

The regulator has reminded operators that they must screen customers against asset-freezing measures, block designated individuals from opening accounts or betting, freeze funds immediately and report to the Minister for the Economy. The case behind the warning brought a €20,000 fine, a suspended two-month operating ban, and personal penalties for two executives.

• The Autorité Nationale des Jeux has issued a reminder to all licensed operators of their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations, and warned that its AML and CFT inspections will intensify, SBC News reports
• The notice follows the ANJ's first referral of a licensed operator to France's National Sanctions Commission in 2025, over failures relating to asset-freezing commands including inadequate internal procedures for notifying authorities of suspicious transactions
• The Commission upheld the breaches and imposed a €20,000 fine and a suspended two-month operating prohibition on the operator, a €20,000 fine and suspended two-month management ban on a former executive, and a €5,000 fine and the same suspended restriction on a senior compliance figure
• The decision was ordered to be published anonymously; the operator is understood to be Betsson France, which established itself in the market by 2024
• Operators must prevent designated individuals from opening accounts or placing bets, freeze funds immediately where a restriction is identified after an account is opened, and report any applicable measure immediately to the Minister for the Economy

A €20,000 Fine and a Warning to Everyone Else

France's gambling regulator has told its licensees to review their financial-crime controls, after the first case in which it referred a licensed operator to the country's sanctions body. The Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) issued the reminder of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations this week, according to SBC News, and said its AML and CFT inspections will intensify.

The case behind it concerned asset freezing rather than laundering in the ordinary sense. The ANJ referred a licensed operator to the National Sanctions Commission in 2025 over failures relating to asset-freezing commands, including inadequate internal procedures to notify the authorities of suspicious transactions. The Commission upheld the breaches. It imposed a €20,000 fine on the operator with a suspended two-month operating prohibition; a €20,000 fine on a former executive with a suspended two-month management ban; and a €5,000 fine on a senior compliance figure with the same suspended restriction. The decision was ordered to be published anonymously, though the operator is understood to be Betsson France, which set up in the market by 2024.

The regulator's reminder sets out what it expects. Licensed operators must maintain adequate systems, staffing and internal procedures to identify customers and entities subject to asset-freezing measures. They must prevent designated individuals from opening accounts or placing bets, and where a restriction is identified after an account has been opened, freeze the funds immediately. Any applicable asset-freezing measure must be reported immediately to the Minister for the Economy. Operators should review customer screening, escalation procedures, staff training and reporting arrangements so that freezes can be implemented without delay, the ANJ said.

The direction of travel matches Britain's. The Gambling Commission has tightened its AML supervision over recent months, suspending the licences of Bet St George and BresBet in early September over money-laundering monitoring, with a third operator following days later. France's regulated online market is limited to sports betting, horse racing and poker, with online casino prohibited.

Asset Freezing Is the Compliance Duty Gambling Operators Are Least Built For

Anti-money laundering in a betting company is mostly about patterns: deposit velocity, third-party payments, source of funds. Asset freezing is different. It is a list, published by the state and updated without notice, and the duty is binary: the named person must not open an account, must not bet, and any money already held must be frozen and reported the same day. That requires real-time screening against a sanctions list at registration and on an ongoing basis, an escalation path that works at three in the morning, and a named person who tells the ministry. Operators built to catch behavioural risk over days have repeatedly been found to lack the instant, list-based control, and France has now put a personal penalty on the executives responsible for that gap.

Fining the Compliance Officer €5,000 Is the Part the Market Should Read

The amounts are small and the point is not the money. A French sanctions body has fined a senior compliance figure personally and suspended their ability to manage, alongside a former executive, for procedural failures at a licensed operator. That is the enforcement style of financial services arriving in gambling, and it changes the incentive structure inside a compliance department: an individual with a personal exposure escalates differently from one who does not. Britain, Malta and the Netherlands have all edged towards personal accountability regimes; France has now applied one.

An Anonymous Decision That Everyone Can Name Serves Nobody Well

The Commission ordered publication without naming the operator, and the market identified it within days. Anonymity is meant to protect proportionality, but where a regulated sector is small enough for the name to circulate anyway, it delivers the reputational damage without the deterrent value of a published precedent, and it leaves other licensees unsure which facts applied to which business. The ANJ's general reminder is the workaround: since the case cannot be cited by name, the regulator restates the duty to everyone and warns that inspections are increasing.

France has spent one case establishing that its sanctions regime reaches gambling operators and the people who run their compliance. The reminder issued this week is the invoice for that lesson, addressed to everyone else.