Gambling Law in France
Updated: 2025
France has a regulated and legal gambling scene. Brick-and-mortar casinos can offer card games, casino-style games, sports betting, and betting on horse races and other events. Online, the same establishments can offer all of these options except casino-style games. All in all, France is a very gambling-friendly nation.
However, France is not all plain sailing. It is well known that France imposes very high taxes and that there is also excessive regulation. This has meant that many regulated licensed gaming sites have been unable to continue in business and have had to leave the market. France came on the scene in 2010, and by 2011 it was recognized that nearly half of the licensed poker sites that were operational had been forced to close. The sites that remained operational and may have survived throughout 2011 did not report any kind of profitable success.
On the positive side, gamblers have a choice. Since there are no laws that make it a crime to gamble on an unlicensed site, citizens can choose from a full menu of licensed and unlicensed sites. If you like what you find at a French legal gaming site, then by all means, go ahead. If you're the type who wants to play on an unlicensed site, you're almost certain to find one you like.
How Online Gambling is Regulated in France
The most significant change in gaming legislation in recent decades occurred in 2010. Under pressure from the European Union to reform its outdated gambling laws, the French government enacted the Gambling Act (Law No. 2010-476). This law created the Regulatory Authority for Online Gaming (ARJEL), which is now responsible for licensing and regulating online gaming in France.
For gamblers, the law was important because it ended the state monopoly that existed before the law was passed. With the law in place, the French market was able to compete with sites from other EU countries. A total of 35 companies applied for licenses and became the first non-governmental entities to offer online poker, sports betting and horse racing to the French public.
Politicians in France decided not to allow traditional casino games such as roulette, table games and slot machines because they feared that these games would be too addictive. To this day, the classic casino games are not part of the offering provided to players by online gaming sites licensed in France.
Among those granted licenses were some of the bigger names in the industry, such as PokerStars, Party Poker, and Everest Poker. The tax revenue from these organizations promised to be very substantial.
The Gaming Act mandated that excessive taxes be levied on both poker and sports betting. Every pot in poker is taxed at a rate of 2%, on top of the rake that online poker sites normally take from pots. To this day, players in our poker pots pay an effective rake of over 7.5% (compared to a typical industry average of 4–5%) on each pot.
When sports betting was introduced, an 8.5% tax was imposed on all bets placed. The taxes imposed on poker and sports betting negatively affect both. Poker players and sports bettors complain that we are being taxed to death. They are right. The tax imposed on us makes it almost impossible for us to come out ahead when we play. Several poker sites have even gone out of business because of the ridiculous tax laws.
To make matters worse, the gambling law prohibits the sharing of player pools across national borders. This effectively means that players in France are completely cut off from the international poker scene. If you play on a licensed French poker site, you are only playing against people who are in France. This has caused serious liquidity problems for licensed poker sites as they constantly struggle to keep their games running with such a limited player pool.
Many players choose to play on unlicensed sites based in other countries. The French gambling market has great potential, but unlicensed sites are a problem for regulators. High taxes and a limited player pool have led to many players opting to play on unlicensed sites based in other countries. The French gambling market has great potential, but it's stifled by burdensome regulations and taxes.
