France: ANJ rules against micro-betting

Garance Limouzy July 18, 2024

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France: ANJ rules against micro-betting

The ANJ, the French regulator, has decided to reject the monopoly holder La Fran?aise des Jeux’s request to introduce micro-betting into their offerings.

La Fran?aise des Jeux, a privatised company and monopoly holder for lottery games and sports betting in physical shops, has submitted its 2025 programme for review by the regulator. To curb the growing illegal market in France, which surpassed the legal market in 2023, La Fran?aise des Jeux aims to improve channelisation by offering a wider variety of games, as mandated by the ANJ. Therefore, La Fran?aise des Jeux has proposed to introduce two new types of sports betting related to micro-betting: custom betting and extended betting.

Custom betting and extended betting

Custom betting is described by the ANJ as “a form of combined betting on a single sporting event that allows players to build their combination by selecting various elements of their bet on the event.” The regulator provides examples such as “exact score, number of goals, names of scorers, half-time score, etc.” Players engaging in custom betting receive personalised odds.

On the other hand, extended betting “allows placing bets during part of the sports match it is based on, from five minutes before the match starts to five minutes before the start of the second half,” according to the ANJ.

In France, bets that do not rely on the punter’s sporting knowledge were already prohibited by the ANJ. The regulator clarifies that bets such as “the colour of a player’s socks” or “even or odd number of goals” are not permissible.

Reasons for the ban

The ANJ states, ” it is evident from the investigation that these new sports betting methods are based on mechanisms which, according to several scientific studies, present specific risk factors for excessive gambling. The distribution of these methods is not justified in sales outlets where gambling practices are mainly anonymous and the identification of problematic behaviour is still underdeveloped.”

Recently, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Great Britain Gambling Commission expressed concerns about micro-betting, explaining that “subjectivity presents new challenges for operators and regulators.” She elaborated, “Events like goals scored, corners given, or yellow cards shown are objective—they either happened or they didn’t. That’s not the case with player-level markets (or micro-betting), where judgments are more subjective. Introducing concepts that require subjective judgment introduces debate and argument. I’m not saying these markets should not exist, but we’ve observed an increase in disputes from consumers where bets with higher margins and multiple selections now include elements that can be seen differently by different individuals, particularly when such differences determine winning or losing.”

No cross-promotion

The ANJ has also decided to prohibit some cross-promotions previously used by La Fran?aise des Jeux in its games. The ANJ determined that such promotions “encouraged players to upgrade by emphasising potential winnings,” which contradicts “the objective of limiting game consumption” and “encourages consumers’ natural inclination to gamble by stimulating their active participation in gambling.”