France's New Gambling Law Forces Sportsbooks to Cap Youth Losses by 2027

⏰ 3 min read

France has enacted Act No. 2026-725 on 3 August 2026, the most sweeping rewrite of its professional sport and betting framework in a generation. The law empowers the Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) to impose mandatory loss caps on bettors aged 18 to 25 — a power that takes effect on 1 January 2027 — while simultaneously granting the regulator authority to order direct blocking of financial flows to unlicensed sites and compel VPN and proxy providers to enforce access restrictions. Every sportsbook licensed in France faces new compliance requirements before the year is out.

The legislation also shields real-time sports data from unauthorised betting use, raises criminal penalties for unlicensed sports agents to up to five years' imprisonment and €375,000 in fines, and makes gender equality in professional sport a legal obligation for the first time. Signed just weeks after the 2026 FIFA World Cup, SBC News described the Act as France moving to assume "centralised control of sport and betting" — signalling where French regulatory philosophy is heading across the board.

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Youth Loss Limits: What the ANJ Can Now Do

From 1 January 2027, the ANJ gains statutory authority to set age-specific loss caps, deposit limits, and stake restrictions for all bettors aged 18 to 25 across every licensed French sportsbook. Any request by a young bettor to increase their own limits will be subject to a mandatory time delay — the exact duration and euro thresholds are delegated to secondary regulation following an ANJ consultation process, with a government decree expected in late 2026.

France becomes only the second EU market after the Netherlands to legislate loss-based rather than stake-based controls for young adults. This is a philosophically broader approach: it requires operators to track cumulative losses across sessions rather than simply capping individual bet sizes — a far heavier technical and data-management lift for most compliance teams. The compressed window between royal assent and the effective date leaves roughly five months for operators to build or retrofit those systems.

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New Enforcement Powers Against Illegal Sites

The Act grants the ANJ two tools it did not previously hold:

• Direct financial flow blocking: The regulator can order payment processors, banks, and e-wallet providers to block transactions to unlicensed gambling sites without first going through the courts — matching the model Italy adopted in 2022.
• VPN and proxy blocking: ISPs and VPN providers can be compelled to prevent users from circumventing site bans via proxy tools. No major EU market has legislated this at scale, making France an outlier in the firmness of its approach to channelisation.

Both powers take effect immediately. The practical impact depends on ANJ deployment frequency, but operators of unlicensed French-facing sites now carry a materially higher risk of payment disruption than at any previous point in the market's history.

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Sports Data Protection

The Act explicitly criminalises the unauthorised aggregation of French real-time sports data for betting purposes. Operators sourcing live match data for in-play markets must ensure their feed contracts explicitly cover French sporting events — sourcing via unlicensed aggregators now carries direct legal exposure under French law. A separate provision authorises a trial of virtual advertising superposition during TV broadcasts from 1 January 2027 to 30 June 2028, opening a new regulated commercial channel for sports betting brands in French broadcast media for the first time.

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What Operators Must Do Before January 2027

The compliance checklist for any sportsbook holding a French ANJ licence is material and time-sensitive:

Requirement	Legal Basis	Deadline
Age-segmented loss tracking (18–25)	Act No. 2026-725, ANJ powers article	1 January 2027
Youth limit-increase delay mechanism	Secondary decree — ANJ consultation pending	By decree, est. late 2026
Real-time data feed compliance	Sports data protection provisions	Immediate (law in force)
Payment processor cooperation	ANJ financial flow blocking authority	Immediate (law in force)
KYC age verification uplift	ANJ youth controls infrastructure	Before 1 January 2027

Operators without robust customer segmentation and real-time cumulative loss tracking at the account level face the steepest retrofit cost. Those relying on self-reported dates of birth rather than document-verified KYC will need to harden their onboarding flows before the ANJ secondary rules land. Bet365, which secured its French sports betting licence in 2026, is subject to the full new framework alongside incumbents Winamax, PMU, and Unibet.

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Sources

Reporting draws on the enacted legislation, legal analysis from Bird & Bird and Conventus Law, the DILA official journal entry confirming the enactment date, and specialist iGaming trade press.

From 1 January 2027, the ANJ will be able to impose loss caps for young bettors, whose requests to increase gaming limits will be time-limited.

— Act No. 2026-725, Professional Sport Law, France · Enacted 3 August 2026