France’s illegal online gambling market has overtaken the regulated sector, with 5.4 million players and an estimated €2bn in gross gaming revenue in 2025. Industry group AFJEL and multiple French outlets report soaring harms: high rates of problem play, widespread cyber-fraud, and a mounting fiscal hole for the state. Calls are growing for stricter enforcement, and, from some voices, for regulating online casinos to replace the black market.
France’s black-market gambling is expanding at speed, according to new figures released by the Association française des jeux en ligne (AFJEL). Its latest barometer, an update to PwC’s 2023 study for the national regulator, finds that the illegal online market now draws more people than the legal one.
The AFJEL report sets out the topline: “5.4 million French players on the illegal market versus 3.5 million players on the regulated market” and “+35% in players on the illegal market since 2023.” It estimates “€2 billion of Gross Gaming Revenue for the illegal market in 2025,” an increase of “+25% since 2023.”
An accompanying press statement from AFJEL stresses that “the illegal market has surpassed the regulated online gambling market in France.” The group adds: “It is the sign of organised crime that has been industrialised and an accessible illegal offer that benefits from extensive advertising on the Internet and social networks.”
The human toll, AFJEL argues, is concerning. “More than 3 million players are in a situation of addiction,” and “62% of players on the illegal market have an excessive and pathological practice… an unprecedented concentration of French players at risk according to the international benchmark (ICJE).” Awareness is strikingly low: “82% of players do not know that these sites are illegal!”
What are people playing? AFJEL’s breakdown of demand reveals that “The three types of games most favoured on the illegal market: 1. Online casino 2. Sports betting (1.3 million French people) 3. E-sports betting (1 million players).”
At the same time, the legal sector continues to grow at a record pace. According to the national regulator’s semi-annual review, gross gaming revenue (GGR) in the regulated market rose 3.5% in the first half of 2025 to reach €5.7bn, an “absolutely unprecedented” level despite the absence of major sporting events.
AFJEL’s figures depict a chaotic environment rife with scams and aggressive marketing. The report states: “70% of players have been victims of cybersecurity problems (data theft, phishing, financial fraud…)” and “90% of players on the illegal market have played after receiving unsolicited advertising.”
The fiscal costs are also mounting. AFJEL’s slides quantify “€1.2 billion of annual shortfall for the State (based on taxation equivalent to that of online sports betting)” and point to “up to €4 billion annual social cost borne by the community due to the addictive practices of French players on the illegal market.”
Nicolas Béraud, founder and chief executive of Betclic and president of AFJEL, has urged tighter oversight across all verticals. In a France Info interview, he said: “It is important that the public authorities control in the same way the other games of chance as online sports betting.”
Béraud highlighted the policy gap around online casino products: “France is one of the few countries that has not regulated online casino games, and several studies have shown that there are more than one million players who play regularly on these sites without any control, without tax for the State.”
French daily Libération echoed the new data, adding that these platforms “attract customers with outsized bonuses, flood social networks with advertising, use unscrupulous influencers, sponsor sports teams and manipulate search engines to promote their offer”.
In Libération, Béraud is quoted in a related AFJEL communication saying: “We call for a clear and urgent response: to put an end to this French anomaly by legalising online casinos in order to better control them. It is not a question of creating a new online gambling activity since it already exists on the illegal market.”
Regulators have responded cautiously. Talking to SiGMA News, Pauline Hot, director of the French regulator, ANJ, said that if France were ever to authorise online casinos, it would have to be within “a very strict regulatory framework,” likely stricter than for any other form of gambling, as she considers these games to have a highly addictive design. “If one day they were to be authorised,” she explained, “it would have to be within a very strict regulatory framework, probably stricter than for other games, because the design of these games is particularly addictive.”
Pauline Hot has also expressed unease with the broader cultural drift that has made gambling appear as a normal. “Even if gambling is authorised and regulated, it should not become a product of everyday consumption,” she said. “Playing is allowed, but it carries risks. We are committed to fighting the idea that gambling is an ordinary leisure product, because the risks are not ordinary or harmless.”
She has warned that sports betting, in particular, risks becoming too closely tied to sporting culture. “There is now a structural link, an assimilation, between sporting pleasure and sports betting,” she told SiGMA News. “It raises particular questions about the protection not only of minors, who are not allowed to play in France, but also of young adults aged 18 to 25.”
Pauline Hot said the regulator is considering stricter advertising and sponsorship limits to curb what she calls the “normalisation of gambling.” The ANJ is examining measures similar to the UK’s “whistle-to-whistle” ban and exploring tools such as player identification cards and QR codes in retail outlets to better protect young people.
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