New ANJ Chief Chevremont Promises a Harder Line as France's Black Market Outgrows Its Licensed One

Pascal Chevremont, the incoming president of France's gambling regulator, told lawmakers he plans to tighten state oversight of betting and gaming and intensify the fight against illegal operators. His confirmation by the finance committees of the National Assembly and Senate hands him a six-year term at the Autorite Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), and he inherits a market where the unlicensed sector now serves more players than the legal one. The signal to operators is plain: expect a stricter compliance environment, in line with the tougher posture European regulators have taken on offshore sites.

Chevremont succeeds Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, who led the ANJ from its launch in June 2020 until her term ended this month. He is a career civil servant, currently at the General Economic and Financial Control body (CGefi), and previously director general of the brewers' association Brasseurs de France, with earlier senior roles at the Treasury and the Ministry of the Economy. Speaking to a National Assembly committee on 17 June, he said the French betting space needs a "committed and dynamic authority." He pointed to the same problem the licensed trade has flagged for years, the steady leakage of players to sites that answer to no French rules, an issue that echoes the UK's pressure campaign against black-market advertising.

"A significant proportion of [gambling] is practised illegally," he told the committee. "The primary directive of the framework is to protect players, and yet studies show a significant number of players are minors or have become addicted to gambling."

The numbers behind that warning are stark. The operators' association AFJEL reported in November 2025 that the count of French users visiting illegal betting sites rose 35% since 2023, reaching 5.4 million. That figure now exceeds the roughly 3.5 million players active on licensed platforms. PwC put the illegal market's gross gaming revenue at about €2 billion (about US$2.2 billion) in 2025, with annual fiscal losses above €1.2 billion (about US$1.3 billion). For affiliates and licensed brands, that is the core of the story: a large share of French demand is being captured by sites that pay no French tax, run no safer-gambling checks, and market through influencers and oversized bonuses.

The market Chevremont takes over

France ranks among Europe's five largest betting markets, alongside Italy, the UK, Germany and Spain. Chevremont reminded lawmakers the sector generates around €14 billion (about US$15.1 billion) in annual gross gaming revenue. Online sports betting was the growth engine, rising 19% to €1.76 billion in 2024 and overtaking PMU's share for the first time, while online poker eased to €493 million and online horseracing edged up to €339 million. Yet Chevremont noted France's online penetration sits at 20%, "half the European average," a gap that exists partly because one of the largest verticals is simply illegal.

The compliance squeeze is not only Chevremont's to come. A tax increase that took effect on 1 July 2025 pushed online sports betting levies from 54.9% to 59.3% of GGR, introduced a flat 10% tax on poker GGR in place of the old 0.2% charge on stakes, and added a 15% tax on advertising and promotional spend. The monopoly incumbent FDJ United, which holds France's lottery and retail sports-betting monopoly and earned more than €2.6 billion of France-related gaming revenue in 2024 after paying €4.4 billion in taxes, estimated the July changes would cut its revenue and recurring EBITDA by nearly €45 million (about US$48.6 million) in 2025, with a full-year hit near €90 million. Higher taxes on the legal side while the black market grows untaxed is precisely the squeeze new operators face: UK-based bet365 is entering France despite the constraints.

Why online casino still hangs over the brief

The unresolved question is online casino, which remains banned in France. A government plan to legalise and regulate it was attached to the 2025 budget under then prime minister Michel Barnier, carrying a proposed 27.8% GGR tax that would have lifted the effective rate to 55.6% and was projected to raise around €500 million. It was shelved after land-based casino operators and local mayors pushed back hard. Gregory Rabuel, president of the Casinos de France association, warned legalisation could be "catastrophic," estimating up to 30% of land-based casinos could close with as many as 15,000 jobs lost. That is the precedent that frames Chevremont's term: a reform with real revenue behind it died on industry opposition, and nothing has replaced it.

Meanwhile the demand keeps flowing offshore. The ANJ has estimated illegal online casinos alone generated between €748 million and €1.5 billion in GGR in 2023, capturing 5% to 11% of the French market. Chevremont framed the tension carefully, saying the sector "is growing, and yet the public health objective of preventing excessive gambling leads us to consider this growth within limits that have not been defined." He did not commit to reopening the casino file. The structural problem is familiar across Europe, where high-tax, narrow-scope regimes leave room for unlicensed competition, the same dynamic visible in markets from Spain's casino-led online growth to Estonia's slow tax-driven operator shift.

Falque-Pierrotin leaves on a warning rather than a victory lap. Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, she flagged France as a "risk zone" and predicted betting stakes could reach as much as €1.2 billion, above the record €900 million wagered during the 2022 tournament, launching a "Zone a risques" public-awareness campaign. The ANJ, created by ordinance on 2 October 2019 and operational from June 2020, is a seven-member board chaired by its president. Last month it issued GDPR guidelines for the gambling sector with the data authority CNIL, covering all licensed operators from betting and poker platforms to FDJ and PMU. Chevremont takes the chair with the World Cup already underway and the black market larger than the market he is paid to police.