France licensed gambling operators: how to use the ANJ list

As checked on 8 September 2026, the Autorité nationale des jeux publishes 17 legal-entity records for authorised online operators. That number does not mean there are 17 legal online casinos. The competitive remote framework covers sports betting, horse betting and games of circle, which in this context means 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 recounted the live ANJ page on 8 September. Sixteen of the 17 entities include sports betting, five include horse betting and eight include poker. Those counts total 29 permissions because an entity can hold more than one category; they do not represent 29 operators, brands or domains.

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 current page lists unibet.fr and zeturf.fr under FDJ Online Betting and Gaming France for sports betting, horse betting and poker. It also lists unibet.fr under La Française des Jeux for poker. Atlas preserves both regulator-published rows rather than silently choosing one company name or collapsing them into a single generic Unibet licence.

This is a practical warning for licence checks during corporate or regulatory transitions: an exact domain match is necessary but may still be insufficient. The legal entity and category shown in the same row determine what that record proves on the verification date.

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.

The ANJ currently publishes 17 licensed-online legal-entity records. The Atlas France relation layer contains 13 brand-level records matched to the official list or the separately controlled exclusive-rights layer. The difference is not evidence that four ANJ licences are missing: one register entity can control multiple consumer brands, while some current ANJ entities are not yet represented as Atlas operator profiles.

Atlas therefore treats 17 as the regulator's entity count and 13 as the present brand-relation coverage. A future coverage metric must define its denominator at one consistent grain: entities, approved domains, brands or product permissions. Mixing those units would create a precise-looking but false percentage.

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? ANJ currently says 17. Does that include online casinos? No; the competitive online categories are sports betting, horse betting and poker. Is PokerStars the licence holder? The register names Reel Malta Limited as the entity and lists the approved PokerStars-family 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.

This evidence pack was rechecked on 8 September 2026 and is assigned a 30-day review cadence. The official list can change at entity, domain and category level, and the Atlas brand layer does not yet represent every one of the 17 ANJ operator entities.

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.