France licensed gambling operators: how to use the ANJ list

On 8 November 2026, Atlas counted 16 legal-entity entries in the Autorité nationale des jeux licensed-operator list. ANJ's separate general categories page still says 17 operators, so the two public pages do not reconcile. Neither number means legal online casinos: the competitive remote categories are sports betting, horse betting and games of circle, meaning online poker.

Each category requires its own ANJ approval. An operator licensed for sports betting cannot turn that permission into horse betting, poker, online slots or live casino. The correct answer to whether a site is legal in France therefore begins with the domain and exact product, not the international brand name.

The public ANJ list is structured around legal entities. Under each entity it names one or more approved consumer sites and the categories attached to that record. For example, Betclic Enterprises Limited is connected to betclic.fr and three categories, while BETSSON FRANCE SA is connected to betsson.fr for sports betting only.

This entity-first layout prevents a common verification error. A licence badge or a parent-company statement can be genuine but still fail to prove that the domain in the browser and the product being offered are covered by the French record.

The ANJ list makes the separation visible. Reel Malta Limited is the licensed entity behind several PokerStars and BetStars domains. B.E.S. SAS appears above bwin.fr and partypoker.fr. FDJ Online Betting and Gaming France connects the company record to unibet.fr and zeturf.fr.

A useful check preserves all three layers: the entity that holds the approval, the consumer brand used in marketing and the exact .fr domain. Replacing the entity with a brand, or treating all domains owned by a group as approved, loses the evidence that the register is designed to provide.

Betclic, Bet365 and PMU appear with all three competitive online categories. Betsson, OlyBet, NetBet and VBET are listed for sports betting in the current record. PokerStars and Winamax illustrate a different mix: sports betting and poker, without a horse-betting permission shown in the same entry.

The categories also explain why two sites controlled by the same entity may not be interchangeable. The domain, brand and category combination should be copied from the live list rather than inferred from a sister product or another country.

Atlas enumerated the full licensed-operator list on 8 November: all 16 entries include sports betting, five include horse betting and seven include poker. These produce 28 overlapping entity-category rows, not 28 operators, brands or domains. The general categories page's unreconciled count of 17 should be retained as a source conflict, not silently substituted into this enumeration.

The product mix is more useful than a single headline count. BCFR2, BCFR4, Feeling Publishing, FP Opérateur and La Différenciation Evidente are sports-only examples, while Betclic, Hillside and PMU span all three competitive categories. A comparison page should therefore count at one declared grain and retain the product columns.

The 8 November licensed-operator list has one FDJ Online Betting and Gaming France row for unibet.fr and zeturf.fr, covering sports betting, horse betting and poker. It does not show the separate La Française des Jeux poker entry recorded in the September Atlas snapshot. La Différenciation Evidente names yesorno-jeu.fr for sports betting.

Those are observed directory differences. They do not establish a withdrawal, transfer, corporate transaction or effective date. Keep the September snapshot as historical evidence and use the current entity-domain-category entry for a present check; obtain the relevant ANJ decision before explaining why an entry changed.

The ANJ's channel and product page states that casino games are offered in physical establishments and that online casino games, particularly online slots, are not authorised on the French market. That boundary is separate from legal online poker, even though both may use cards, tables or casino-style presentation.

A site offering sports betting under an ANJ-listed domain is not thereby authorised to offer online roulette, blackjack or slots to the French market. Likewise, an overseas casino licence does not replace the French product-specific approval.

ANJ distinguishes licensed online operators from operators with exclusive rights. The competitive approvals apply to the three remote categories. FDJ and PMU also hold exclusive rights in defined lottery, retail sports-betting or retail horse-betting channels, subject to ANJ oversight.

That means a brand can participate in more than one regulatory capacity. A verification should name the channel and legal basis instead of using a broad label such as France-licensed for every product sold by the group.

ANJ's customer-service page separately associates Parions Web / Parions Sport with FDJ Online Betting and Gaming France and the domains parionsweb.fr, parionsweb.fdj.fr and enligne.parionssport.fdj.fr for sports betting and poker. The separate lottery monopoly remains an exclusive-rights activity; it is not an additional competitive online category or proof that every FDJ group domain covers every product.

The November licensed-operator list contains 16 enumerated legal-entity entries. The Atlas France relation layer has 13 brand-level records matched to the official list or the separately controlled exclusive-rights layer. These are different units: one entity can control several brands, while some listed entities have no Atlas operator profile.

Do not divide the brand count by the entity count to create a coverage percentage. First choose a denominator of entities, domains, brands or product permissions, then reconcile the underlying records. The separate ANJ page that still says 17 is an additional limitation on any claimed official total.

Define the jurisdiction as France and start on the ANJ licensed-operator page, not on an affiliate list or the operator's international homepage. Search the exact domain, then capture the legal entity and category shown in the same entry. Compare the domain in the address bar character by character and confirm that the product being used is one of the listed categories.

Use the Atlas France profile to locate the regulator and the licence checker to record the result. If the brand appears but the domain or product does not, keep the outcome unresolved until the live ANJ source supports the complete chain.

ANJ explains that an approval is granted by category for five years and can be renewed. That describes the legal instrument, not a permanent promise that every brand, site or product remains unchanged throughout the term.

Corporate transfers, domain changes, product launches and regulator decisions can alter the practical record. A dated decision may help explain history, but the current operator list is the better starting point for a consumer-facing check.

Failure to find a brand on the ANJ page is not enough to label the company globally illegal. The brand may be outside the French market, may operate under another approved domain or entity, or may have changed name. The conclusion should stay tied to France, the searched domain, the product and the date.

When a site offers an online casino product, the product boundary is clearer: the ANJ states that online casino games are not authorised in the French market. Even then, the claim should describe the French offer rather than the company's status in every country.

How many online operators are licensed in France? Atlas enumerated 16 entries on ANJ's licensed-operator list on 8 November 2026, while ANJ's general categories page still states 17. That conflict is unresolved. Do these counts include legal online casinos? No; the competitive online categories are sports betting, horse betting and poker. The PokerStars entry names Reel Malta Limited and its listed domains and categories.

Is a sports-betting licence enough for poker? No. Category scope is separate. Can a foreign licence make an online casino legal in France? It does not replace French authorisation for the product and domain.

All five cited ANJ pages were rechecked on 6 November 2026. The 16-entry enumeration and 28-category-row count describe the licensed-operator page on that date; they do not resolve the other ANJ page's count of 17. The 17-entity, 29-permission figures in Atlas's September snapshot are historical, not current totals. The next scheduled review is 6 December 2026, with an earlier trigger for a directory or decision change.

A bounded recheck on 8 November reconfirmed the complete licensed-list enumeration, selected table rows, current FDJ entity/domain distinctions and the separate categories page's headline of 17. It updates those claims and their controlling source checks only. It is not a completed whole-guide review, does not resolve the cross-page count conflict and does not move the prior 6 December review target. Required human review remains outstanding.

A later ANJ renewal, withdrawal, domain change or category decision can change the table. The live regulator page controls when it conflicts with this guide, and source-backed corrections can be submitted through the Atlas corrections process without payment.